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*' ‘ 










AN INQUIRY 

/. 

INTO SOME OF THE 

MOST CURIOUS AND INTERESTING SUBJECTS 

OF 


tstorp, Snttquttp, 


AND 

' . ' i i 

SCIENCE; 

* .. 

' ", , •: 

WITH AN APPENDIX, 

t . • ' 

CONTAINING v 

- / , 

THE EARLIEST INFORMATION OF THE MOST REMARKABLE 

CITIES 

OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES„ 


By THOMAS MOIR, 


MEMBER OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE, EDINBURGH, 


/' LONDON: Qj 



FRINTED FOR LACKTNGTON, ALLEN, AND CO. BOOKSELLERS, 
LONDON; ADAM HOGG, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH; ALEX. 
JJROWN AND CO. ABERDEEN; CLARK AND SANGSTER, 

AND WILLIAM MORTIMER, PETERHEAD; AND 
OTHER BOOKSELLERS IN SCOTLAND. 


1817 










(\Gr VOS' 


D. Chalmers & Co. Printers, 
Aberdeen. 



TO 


] 


JAMES FERGUSON of PITFOFR, M. r. 


SIR, 

The following Sheets , containing an In¬ 
quiry into some of the most curious and interesting 
departments of History and Science , I have taken 
the liberty of addressing to you ; and I hope they will 
be found worthy of the notice of one, whose extensive 
knowledge and accurate discernment are well adapted 
to enable him to form a correct judgment of their 
merits . 


I am, 

With great deference and respect , 


Your most obedient and very humble servanty 
THOMAS MO IK. 





01 


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AW 


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mI) oak eft v/0 Y± iifiilul. s/l) ^nintoo 

TO THE PUBLIC. 



Iris presumed that llo information Canhe more 
acceptable to- the geii6i ; ality of readers than that 
which furnishes, them with an accurate idea of those 
subjects that are generally considered as most' iitstriic- 
tive at the present day; and in tracing them to their 
origin, when they happen to have had tlWit birth 
among the ancients. Nor is it a task less pleasing 
to investigate those changes and revolutions, which, 
in the lapse of time, have gradually been occurring 
with regard to the state and circumstances of those 
interesting Scientific topics, which it hCre becomes 
our province to review 7 . 

This little Work will, therefore, be found to em¬ 
brace many points of the above description, Which 
are sufficiently curious and interesting 1 ;' ahd, as a pre¬ 
liminary article, to contain a very ample account of 
the numerous Religious Houses that formerly existed 
iu England, also a detailed statement of their Ren¬ 
tal, and of the Revenue that accrued to Government 
by their suppression at the Reformation. ’ There 
will be found a most learned and able discussion con- 




II 


cerning the Julian year, New Style, as also the So¬ 
lar and Lunar Cycles. 

The reader will also be informed of the origin of 
the most renowned Military Orders of Knighthood, 
so much sought after, and usually esteemed one of 
the highest rewards of military merit—the customs 
of the Ancients with regard to the burying of their 
Dead—their treatment of dead bodies, together with 
their manner of preserving the same, will be found to 
be amply unfolded, and to present matter equally 
amusing and curious. The Work will also contain 
some curious inquiries into the architecture of the 
Ancients j with an Appendix, giving the earliest in¬ 
formation of the most ancient and celebrated Cities; 
besides many other articles, equally valuable and 
entertaining. 

On the whole, the Editor flatters himself that this 
small Work will be found to convey the most correct 
information on the various subjects therein contained, 
and afford ample amusement, as well as useful in¬ 
struction, to the attentive reader. 


ERRATA.—Page 16, Line 7 from foot, for remain , read remained 
Page 151, Line 9 from top, for Padua, read Salerno Padua 
Page 919, Line 1, for describes, read prescribes. 





CHAPTER I. 


An Account of the Abbeys in England before the 
Reformation—their Rental per annum—their 
Order—and the Revenue that accrued to the 
King at their dissolution . 

Before the dissolution of Monasteries in 
England, 27 Abbots, sometimes 29, and 2 
Priors, almost all Benedictines, held baro¬ 
nies, and sat in Parliament. The Abbeys 
which enjoyed this privilege were—1st. St. 
Albans, valued, at the dissolution, accord¬ 
ing to the King’s books, in Dugdale, at 
L.2102 per annum; according to vulgar 
computation, in Speed, at L.2510 per ann . 
2d. Glastonbury, dedicated to the Blessed 
Virgin, valued at L.33I1 in Dugdale; at 
L.3500in Speed.—3d. St. Austin’s, at Can¬ 
terbury, which was returned into the Ex- 
a chequer 


14 


chequer to be endowed with L.1413 per 
am .; the Cathedral Priory of Christ’s 
Church in that city being valued at L.2387. 
4th. Westminster Abbey, valued at L.3471 
in Dugdale; at L.3977 in Speed. Mait¬ 
land, (History of London and Westminster, 
p. 391,) observes, that L.3977, at the time 
of the dissolution, was a sum equal to 
L.20,000 at present: and that Westminster 
Abbey was, with this yearly income, far the 
richest in all England. It also surpassed all 
the other Abbeys, by the surprising trea¬ 
sure of rich plate and precious ornaments. 
5th. Winchester Abbey, founded by St. 
Byrinus and Kynegilse, the first Christian 
King of the West Saxons, dedicated to the 
Holy Trinity ; but, in later ages, called St. 
Swithin’s, was valued at L.1507.—^6th. St. 
Edmund’s Bury, built by King Canutus, 
valued at L.1659 in Dugdale; at L.2336 
in Speed.—7th. Ely, where the valuation of 
the Abbey restored by St. Ethelwold was 
L.1084; that of the Bishopric L.2134.— 

8th. 


8th. Abingdon, founded by Cedwalla and 
Ina, Kings of the West Saxons, in honour 
of the B. Virgin, valued at L.1876.—9th. 
Reading Abbey, built by Henry II. valued 
at L.1938.—10th. Thorney, in Cambridge¬ 
shire, refounded by St.Etheiwold, in honour 
of the B. Virgin Mary, valued at L.508.— 
11th. Waltham, which was founded a noble 
Collegiate Church by Earl Harold in 1062, 
and made by Henry II. a royal Abbey of 
regular Canons of St. Austin, under the 
title of the Holy Cross, was valued atL.900 
in Dugdale ; at L.1079 in Speed.—12. St. 
Peter’s in Gloucester, founded by Wulfere 
and Ethelred, Kings of Mercia ; valued at 
E.1550; made a Cathedral by Henry VIII. 

■—13th. Tewksbury, valued at L.1598. It 
was founded in 715, by Doddo, a prime 
Nobleman of Mercia, who became a Monk 
at Pershore.—14. Winchelcomb, in Glou- 
cester-shire, valued at L.759. It was 
founded by Offa and Kenulph, Kings of 
Mercia.—15th. Ramsey, in Huntingdon- 
a 2 shire. 


16 


shire, founded by Ailwyne, Alderman of 
England, and Earl of the East Angles, in 
honour of the B. Virgin and St. Bennet; 
rated at L.1716.—16th. Bardney, in Lin¬ 
colnshire. After being demolished by the 
Danes in 870, who slew there three hundred 
Monks, it was rebuilt by William the Con¬ 
queror.—17th. Crowland, valued at L.1087 
in Dugdale; at L.1217 in Speed.—18th. St. 
Bennet’s in Hulm, in Norfolk, founded 
about the year 800; valued at L.585. This 
Abbacy was given by Henry VIII. to the 
Bishops of Norwich, in exchange for the 
estates formerly belonging to that See, then 
valued at the yearly income of L.1050. 
From which time the Bishops of Norwich 
remain the only Abbots in England. The 
great Monastery of the Holy Trinity in 
Norwich was valued at L.1061 per ann .— 
19th. Peterborough Abbey,begun by Peada, 
King of Mercia, in 655 ; rebuilt by Adulf, 
Chancellor to King Edgar, who became 
himself a Monk, and died Abbot of this 

House. 


17 


House. The revenues of this Abbey were 
rated, in the 26th year of Henry VIII. at 
L.1921, according to the clear value, in 
Dugdale, and at L.1972, according to the 
computed value. Henry VIII. spared this 
Church out of regard to the ashes of his in¬ 
jured Queen Catharine, and converted the 
Abbey into an Episcopal See, which is now 
charged in the King’s books with L.414.— 
20th. Battle Abbey, in Sussex, founded by 
William the Conqueror, in honour of St. 
Martin, valued at L.880.—21st. Malmes¬ 
bury, in Wiltshire, valued at L.803.—22d. 
Whitby, anciently called Streaneshalch, 
founded by King Oswi, in favour of St. Hil¬ 
da, in 657. It was destroyed by the Danes, 
but rebuilt for Monks, after the conquest, in 
honour of St. Peter and St. Hilda.—23d. 
Selby, in Yorkshire, begun by William the 
Conqueror, in honour of St. Peter and St. 
Germanus, rated at L.729.—24th. St. 
Mary’s, at York, built in the reign of Wil¬ 
liam Rufus, valued at L.2085 in Speed. 

a 3 The 


18 


The other mitred Abbeys were those of 
Shrewsbury, Cirencester, Evesham, Tavis¬ 
tock, and Hide at Winchester.—(See Brown 
Willis’s History of Mitred Abbeys.) Also 
two Priors had seats in the House of Lords, 
namely Coventry, and of the Knights of 
St. John of Jerusalem. This was styled 
Primus Anglia 3 Baro, and was the first lay 
Baron, though a religious man. (See Bishop 
Tanner’s Notitia Monastica> according to 
whose most exact calculation, at the sup¬ 
pression of religious Houses in England, 
the sum total of the revenues of the greater 
Monasteries amounted to L. 104,919 ; of 
the lesser, L,29,702 ; of the head House of 
the Knights Hospitallers, or of Malta, in 
London, L.2385 ; of twenty-eight other 
Houses of that order, L.3026 ; of seven 
Houses of Trinitarians, (which are all we 
find the valuation of, the rest having pro¬ 
bably no real foundations,) L.287.) 

By 


Ey an Act which was passed in the Par¬ 
liament in March 1535, by the suppression 
of one hundred and eighty-one lesser Monas¬ 
teries, a revenue of L.32,000 per annum 
came to the Crown, besides L. 100,000 in 
plate and jewels. By the greater Houses 
suppressed in 1539, the King obtained a 
revenue of L.100,000 per annum, besides 
plate and jewels. The Houses of the 
Knights of Malta were seized by the King 
in 1540. Afterwards, in 1548, were granted 
to King Edward VI. and suppressed, 
ninety Colleges, one hundred and ten Hos¬ 
pitals, and two thousand three hundred and 
seventy-four Chantries and free Chapels. 
The Churches in all the Northern King¬ 
doms, as Denmark, Sweden, &c. were 
stripped much more naked by the change 
of religion. 

The revenues of the Clergy were laid at 
one fourth part of the revenues of the king¬ 
dom, in the 27th of Henry VIII. as may be 


seen 


20 


seen in Compl. History. And Mr. Collier, 
in his* Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 108, 
says, the revenues of the Monks never did 
exceed oneffitli part ; and, considering the 
leases they granted upon small rents, and 
easy fines, it may truly be affirmed their reve¬ 
nues did not exceed a tenth part of the na¬ 
tion. Thus Bishop Tanner, Pref. p. 7. 

Monasteries in England are no more; 
yet justice is due to an order of men, which 
was formerly an illustrious part of this na¬ 
tion, and abounded with persons eminent 
for birth, learning, and piety. The veil 
which death throws over the ashes of good 
and great men is sacred, and to cast dirt 
upon their shrine is shocking to the most 
savage barbarians. Yet of this some have 
made a point of merit. Bishop Burnett 
says, “ the Monks were become lewd and 
dissolute when their order was suppressed 
among us.” But Mr. Henry Wharton, un¬ 
der the name of Anthony Harmer, in his 

Speci- 


21 


Specimen of Errors in Burnett’s History of 
the Reformation, answers this slander in 
the following words, p. 42. “ God forbid 
that any professors of Christianity, much 
less the greatest pretenders to it, should be 
guilty of such monstrous wickedness, or 
that any others should believe it of them, 
without evident proof. Surely if the Monks 
had been guilty of any such thing, it could 
not have escaped the knowledge of their 
visitors, who searched and divulged all 
their faults with the utmost industry. Nor 
would it have been unknown to Bale, 
brought up among them > nor omitted by 
him in his English Votaries, wherein he had 
set himself to defame the Monastic order, 
and the unmarried Clergy, with insatiable 
malice.” The same learned Protestant di¬ 
vine and historian, in answer to another 
charge of Bishop Burnett, importing that 
the Monks, about the end of the 8th cen¬ 
tury, had possessed themselves of the 
greatest part of the riches of the nation, 

shews 



22 


shews (p. 40) that the Monks had not then 
probably gained possession of the hun¬ 
dredth fart of the riches of the nation, 
though they afterwards, in the tenth , 
eleventh , and tweljth centuries, increased 
exceedingly in number and possessions. 
“ But, after all,” says he, i( they will never 
be found to have possessed above a fijtli part 
of the nation; and considering they wont to 
lease out their lands to laymen, for easy 
fines and small rents, they did not in reality 
possess the tenth part of the riches of the 
nation.” Then, in answer to that other 
charge, that the best part of the soil being 
in such ill hands, it was the interest of the 
nation to have it put to better uses, it is al¬ 
together erroneous. ** From the beginning 
to the end, none ever improved their lands 
and possessions to better advantages than 
the Monks, by building, cultivation, and all 
other methods, while they kept them in 
their own hands.” Of this Croyland is, to 
this day, a manifest instance. “ And when 

they 


23 


they leased them out to others, it was the 
interest of the nation to have such easy te¬ 
nures continued to great numbers of per¬ 
sons who enjoyed them. To this may be 
added, that they contributed to the public 
charges of the nation equally with the other 
Clergy, and the Clergy did always contri¬ 
bute in proportion above the laity : so that 
we cannot find to what better uses these 
possessions have been since put,” &c. 

Bishop Tanner also observes, that the 
Church lands, after the Conquest, contri¬ 
buted to all public burdens equally with the 
laity. Walsingham, p. 180, and Patrick, in 
his addit. to Gunton, p. 321, say, that, in 
the reign of Richard II. A. D. 1379, every 
mitred Abbot paid as much to the tax as an 
Earl, and 6s. 8d. for every Monk in his Mo¬ 
nastery. In 18th Edward II. A. D. 1289* 
the Abbot of St. Edmund’s Bury paid L.666 
13s. 4d. to the fifteenth.—See Cowell’s In¬ 
terpreter, sub voce Quinsieme ; also Rymer, 
vol. ii. p. 75, and Steven’s App. p. 108. See 

a jus- 


24 


a justification and apology for Monks and 
Monastic orders in Monasticon Feversha- 
mense, or a Survey of the Monastery of 
Feversham, by Thomas Southouse, of 
Gray’s Inn, London, 1634. 

Of the Benedictine Order were all our Ca¬ 
thedral Priories, except Carlisle, and most 
of the richest Abbeys in England. Rey- 
ner, (vol. i.) says, that the revenue of the 
Benedictines were almost equal to those of 
all the other orders. Sir Robert Atkyns 
says, there was in England, before the Re¬ 
formation, 45,009 Churches, and 55,000 
Chapels; now only about 10,000. Dr. 
Bently, under the name of Philoleutherus 
Lipsionsis, in remarks upon a late Discourse 
of Free-thinking, says, that out of 10,000 
Parish Churches, there are 6000, the yearly 
income of which does not exceed L.50 each. 
On the then state of the Church Revenues 
in England, see that Treatise in Dean Pri- 
deaux, on the Origin and Right of Tithes. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER II. 


Of the Calendar—its Derivation.—As also an Ac¬ 
count of the Solar Cycle , Lunar Cycle y and the 
principal distinguished periods in Chronology , &;c. 
&;c. <3fc. 

The word Calendar is derived from Ca¬ 
lender, and this from the obsolete Latin 
verb calare, borrowed from the Greek, to 
call . The application of this word relates 
to a custom in ancient Rome, on the day of 
the Calends, when the people were assem¬ 
bled in the Capitol every new moon, and 
one of the inferior Priests called over as 
many days as were between that and the 
Nones. Thus the first day of the month 
began to be known by Calendas. They 
were remarkable for the expiration of debts 
and the commencement of contracts; and 
n hence 


26 


hence the name of Calendar was given to 
the publications which notified the distri¬ 
bution of time, its seasons, fairs, and solemn 
days. This term still obtains, though our 
reckoning by the Calendae be no longer in 
use. However, the necessity of something 
equivalent to a Calendar has always been 
experienced. There are none of the events 
or business of life, either past or to come, 
that do not need, in a great measure, stated 
periods for regular recourse: but it is one 
thing to be convinced of the necessity of a 
Calendar, and another to furnish such as 
may fully answer the end. How many 
ages, how many observations and calcula¬ 
tions, were wanting to arrive at the present 
regulation 1 which, after all, is not abso¬ 
lutely perfect. However, the ingenious and 
painful researches of the learned have 
reached a nearness of perfection, which 
would be yet unknown, but for the labours 
of antiquity, which happily paid more atten¬ 
tion to a matter of this importance than ge¬ 
nerally 


27 


nerally modern manners seem fond of. In¬ 
deed without a Calendar, ancient history, 
at this period, would be involved in impe¬ 
netrable confusion. 

Rome received its Calendar from Romu¬ 
lus and Numa, but this Calendar was very 
defective. Julius Caesar reformed it; but 
he did not give it that degree of exactness 
which might render another reformation 
unnecessary. The error that remained by 
his calculation so encreased by degrees, 
that, in 1582, a surplus of ten days was at 
once struck off. 

This mistake proceeded from an oversight 
in the astronomer Sosigenes, whom Caesar 
had consulted. He laid down for the basis 
of his calculation, that the sun was 365 days 
and 6 hours performing its course through 
the ecliptic ; whereas the astronomers of 
the 16th century have discovered that this 
revolution is performed in 365 days, 5 
b 2 hours, 


2s 


hours, and 49 minutes. Consequently he 
supposed the year to be 11 minutes longer 
than it really is \ which every 134 years in¬ 
creases the error to the length.of a clay ; in¬ 
asmuch, that, from the Council of Nice in 
325 till the reformation of the Calendar in 
3 582, ten clays too many crept into the Ephe- 
meris ; thus the vernal equinox, which, in 
325, was fixed on the 21st day of March, in 
the year 1582 happened on the eleventh , 
though the Calendar always fixed it on 
the 21st. 

This difference increasing from age to 
age, the seasons at length would be so erro¬ 
neously indicated by the Calendar, that we 
might imagine ourselves in Spring, when 
the sun had already gone through all the 
signs. Blondel, who, in the last century, 
published a valuable work on the Calendar, 
ingeniously remarks : “ The prayers, then, 
which the Church hath judiciously ordered, 
in correspondence to the seasons, would be¬ 


come 


29 


come utterly absurd ; how ridiculous to 
pray that God would graciously moderate 
the raging heats of the sun at a time that 
the earth were covered with snow; or to 
petition for rain to help the growth of corn 
already reaped, and stored in our grana¬ 
ries.” This error was one of the principal 
motives which induced Pope Gregory XIII. 
to reform the Calendar. It was caused, as 
has been remarked, on account of the days 
of the year having crept forward in regard 
of the equinoxes and solstices, and conse¬ 
quently of the seasons. But of all the 
faults of the Calendar, this seemed the 
easiest to correct. It was in effect only 
bringing back the vernal equinox to the 
21st of March, as it had been in 325, by 
counting it the 21st day of the month, 
which in the old Calendar was reckoned 
but the 11th. The Pope might have waited 
for March 1583 to make this suppression ; 
but he chose to do it in the month of Oc- 
b 3 tober 


50 


tober preceding, or the day after the feast 
of St. Francis, finding there were fewer 
feasts from this day to the 15th, than in 
the other months. 

To obviate this error in future, he insti¬ 
tuted a new form of years, called the Gre- 
gorian, in which three leap days are left 
out in every 400 years; by which the ex¬ 
cess of eleven minutes yearly accumulating, 
making one day in 134 years, was re¬ 
gulated thus, that after the year 1600, 
every hundredth year, (which, in the 
Julian form, would be leap year, or Bis r 
sextile,) should be reckoned a common year 
of 365 days; but the 400th to be of 366 days; 
so that the years 1700, 1800, and 1900, be 
common ; the year 2000 Bissextile; but 
2100 common, and so in course. By 
this regulation the vernal equinoxes are 
fixed (almost) for ever to the 20th or 21st 
of March. This method is so simple, and 
even so accurate, that a difference of one 

day 


31 


day could not happen in less than 26,800 
years. The suppression of a day, renewed 
each of the three first hundred years, is cal¬ 
led the solar equation . 

The ancient manner of counting days is 
called the Old Stile , and that introduced by 
Pope Gregory XIII. the New Stile . The 
Catholic States adopted it almost as soon as 
it was in use at Rome; and by degrees it 
became general in the Protestant countries. 
Russia still uses the Old Stile , so that their 
year begins eleven days later than ours. 
But to conform the Russian dates to those 
of the other European nations, they are ex¬ 
pressed like fractions, whose numerators 
point out the day of the month according 
to the Gregorian Calendar, and denomina¬ 
tors the day of the same or foregoing 
month, according to the ancient Calendar. 
For example, these fractions \ ] March, sig¬ 
nify an event to have happened in Russia 
the 11th of March: to signify an event 

which 


32 


which happened the 21st December, 1774, 
is written thus: 

\st January, 1775 
215 / December, 1774 

Sometime after the use of cyphers be¬ 
came common in Europe, they were adopted 
to mark the days of the month ; till then 
the Roman manner had been followed, 
which divided each month into three prin¬ 
cipal epochs, viz. Calends , Nones, and Ides. 
The Calends always corresponded to the 
1st day of the month ; the Nones to the 
5th or '7th; and the Ides, being always 
eight days after the Nones, fell conse¬ 
quently on the 13th or 15th of the month. 
The months in which the Nones fell on the 
7th were four—March, May, July, and Oc¬ 
tober. Every month had eight Ides ; 
March, May, July, and October, had six 
Nones; and the rest only four each. 
These parts of the Julian months were 
reckoned backwards, so that the Calends 

being 



23 


being the 1st day of the month, and sup¬ 
posing it to have four Nones, the 5th day of 
the month will be called Nonse, i, e. Nones, 
or Primus Noiiarum; the second day is cal¬ 
led Quartus , the third Tertius, and the 4th 
Pridie Nonas, i.e. the eve of the Nones. 
In like manner the 13th day will be the 
Idus, and sixth, VIII Idus, the seventh, 
VII Idus, &c. After the Idus of any 
month, the followh. .days are numbered 
backwards from the Calends of the next 
month ; so that the 14th of January (for in¬ 
stance) is called XIX Calendas Februarii, 
the 15th XVIII Calendas Februarii, -and so 
on, decreasing in order, till the last day of 
the month, which is called Pridie Calendas 
Februarii . This ancient manner of reckon¬ 
ing the days is still retained in the Roman 
Datary ; and, in general, in Latin inscrip¬ 
tions, or any work written in the Latin 
tongue. Hence we have the term Bissex¬ 
tile, (which we call leap year) a year con¬ 
sisting of 366 days. The day also which is 

this 


this year added is called Bissextile, from its 
being inserted by the Romans next after 
the 6th of the Calends of March, which was 
to be reckoned twice, and was distinguished 
by Bisseocto Calendas Martii , agreeing with 
our 25th of February. 

Hence proceeds the interruption every 
fourth year in the Cycle of the Dominical 
letters. Every revo/^on cf a fixed time, 
after which things return to the same order 
as before, is called a Cycle , and the seven 
first letters of the alphabet are called Domi¬ 
nical, because their chief use is to mark 
each Sunday, or Lord’s day, dies Domini , 
so called in memory of the resurrection of 
our Saviour. 

When the Church adopted the Roman 
Calendar, instead of their Nundinal letters, 
by which the Roman markets or fairs were 
kept, many alterations were necessary rela¬ 
tive to its own customs. Among others, 

the 


the division of weeks, marking each day by 
one of the seven letters; that which marked 
the Sundays during the year was called the 
Dominical letter. By this arrangement the 
letter A is invariably placed against the 1st 
of January ; B against the 2d of January ; 
and so on to the 7th, G, which is placed 
against the 7th of January; after which 
the letter A is placed against the 8th, 
&c. to the end of the year. But the 
Sunday letter changes every year; once 
in every common year, and in every fourth, 
or leap year, twice. And the reason is— 
first, because the common year does not 
consist of exact weeks, having a day over, 
that is, fifty two weeks and one day: so 
that as the year begins with A, set before 
New year’s day, so it ends with A, set be¬ 
fore the last day, December 31st. And the 
year again beginning with A, there will be 
A A falling together, December 31 and 
January 1; so if the former happen to be 
Sunday, the other, of course, must stand 
for Monday: then reckoning forward, Sun¬ 
day 


36 


day must fall on G, which will be the Do¬ 
minical letter that ensuing year. Thus the 
odd day shifts back the Dominical letter 
every year in retrograde order. And this 
revolution would be termined in seven 
years; but, secondly, there comes in another 
odd day every fourth year, being leap year: 
And in that year there are consequently 
two interruptions, the Sunday letter being 
changed twice; once at the beginning of 
the year, and the second time toward the 
latter end of February, by the interposition 
of the Bissextile, or intercalary day, which 
is placed next after the 24th of February : 
and consequently leap years have two Do¬ 
minical letters—the first serves till 241 h of 
February, the second the remainder of the 
year. By this interruption each letter must 
be in its turn changed, and consequently a 
revolution of 4 times 7 ( i.e . 28) years brings 
the Dominical letters to their first order. 
This Cycle is called, from Sunday, the So - 
lar Cycle . This Cycle, in strictness, be¬ 
longs only to the ancient Julian Calendar; 

for 


37 


for the Solar equation in the New Stile re¬ 
quiring the suppression of the Bissextile 
three times every 400 years, there must 
then result an unavoidable derangement in 
the Dominical letters. This, however, does 
not hinder that this Cycle be marked as 
usual in the Liturgy and Ephemeris, under 
the necessary corrections in the tables of 
the Dominical letters. 

The error which crept into the ancient 
Calendar, through the inaccurate calcula¬ 
tion of the length of the year, was not the 
most difficult to be corrected. The faulti¬ 
ness of the Lunar Cycle offered difficulties 
vastly greater. But a minute detail of 
these, to shew the value we ought to set on 
the labours which adjusted them, would be 
too much in this place. The Lunar Cycle 
is a revolution of 19 years, in which time 
the New Moons return to the same days 
they were on before, and in the same order. 
About 439 years before the birth of our Sa- 
c viour, 


38 


viour, there was at Athens a famous astro¬ 
nomer, named Meton, who, in comparing 
the ancient observations with those of his 
own time, thought he discovered that the 
New Moons regularly appeared the same 
day, and in the same part of the heavens, 
every 19 years. The prediction of Eclipses 
became, by this discovery, quite easy, 
which rendered it very interesting; and 
was written at Athens in letters of gold, 
whence it was called the Golden Number . 
Although, since the reformation of the Ca¬ 
lendar, these numbers have no real utility, 
they are still retained, according to the old 
custom, in almanacks, and other works of 
the like kind. 

Let us now see what influence the Lunar 
Cycle can have in the Calendar. It was 
ordered by the old law to celebrate the pas- 
sover the very day of the full moon of the 
vernal equinox. The Synagogue con¬ 
stantly observed this precept, and the first 


con- 


39 


converted Jews conformed to the same ob¬ 
servance. Consequently the Christians ce¬ 
lebrated their Easter when the Jews eat 
their Paschal Lamb, on whatever day of 
the week fell the full moon : but as their 
object was very different, so the generality 
of the Christians put off the celebration of 
Easter to the Sunday following. However, 
in either case, a sure rule was needful to 
know the variations of the Paschal full 
moons ; but the research was intricate, and, 
in the first ages, the Church was much dis¬ 
turbed. But when it began to rest in se¬ 
curity under the Emperor Constantine, 
after mature discussion, it was decreed in 
the Council of Nice—1st, That the feast of 
Easter should be always celebrated on Sun¬ 
day. 2dly, That this Sunday should al¬ 
ways be that which immediately followed 
the 14th day of the moon of the first 
month: but if this 14th day fall on Sun¬ 
day, the feast of Easter was put off till the 
Sunday following, to avoid celebrating it the 
same with the Jews. 3dly, That the month 
c 2 counted 


40 


counted first by the Council was that on 
which the 14th day of the moon either 
exactly corresponded with the vernal equi¬ 
nox, or the very next after the equinox. 
There remained, therefore, no more than to 
know invariably the day of the vernal equi¬ 
nox, and that of the Paschal full moon ; 
but this belonged to astronomers. Those 
of Alexandria, being then in the first re¬ 
pute, were consulted. They answered, that 
the equinox in that age happened on the 
21st March ; it was, therefore, decided, 
that this equinox should be always fixed on 
the 21st of that month. As to the day of 
the Paschal full moon, they declared that 
this day might vary from the 21st of March 
to the 18th of April, inclusively. For in 
reckoning 14 days, beginning with the 8th 
of March, the 14th would answer to the 
21st, the very day of the equinox ; then if 
this day were Saturday, the day after 
would be Easter Sunday, the earliest that 
can possibly happen : for if Sunday were 

the 


41 


the 21st, Easter day would be removed to the 
Sunday following. But if the preceding new 
moon should fall on the 7th of March, it 
would then be full moon the 20th, and 
consequently before the equinox. The 
Paschal moon would then be the following, 
and must fall on the 5th April, because the 
preceding Lunar month having no more 
than 29 days, and commencing the 7th of 
March, it must end the 4th of April. Thus 
the 18th of April would be in this case the 
14th day of the Paschal moon ; and as this 
might fall on Sunday, it is evident that then 
Easter could not be celebrated till the Sun¬ 
day following, that is the 25th of April, the 
latest date possible for the celebration of 
that feast. 

These astronomers, not knowing the 
exact length of the year, nor the error in 
the Lunar Cycle, which was found after¬ 
wards, by the best observations, to be an 
hour and a half too slow; this error, though 
c 3 it 


42 


it seems little, yet, at the end of 12 ages, 
it made a difference of four days between 
the astronomical new moons and those of 
the Calendar. The first effect of this dif¬ 
ference w&s often to put back the celebra¬ 
tion of Easter an entire month; the second 
was to authorise the ridiculous practice of 
marking the new moons many days after 
their appearance. This error was too gross 
to escape notice, and, though many at¬ 
tempts were made to remedy it, it could 
not be abolished till Pope Gregory XIII. 
happily executed the reformation of the Ca¬ 
lendar, which the Council of Trent had so 
earnestly recommended to the Sovereign 
Pontiff. 

He consulted the learned of his time, in¬ 
vited many of them to Rome, and entrusted 
the revisal of their labours to Ciaconius, a 
priest of Teledo, and Clavius, a Jesuit, 
both eminent in astronomy; among the 
works of the latter is found a large treatise 

OIL 


43 


on the Calendar, wherein he relates all the 
corrections made in it; 

The most important was, that of the sup¬ 
pression of the Lunar Cycle, and substitut¬ 
ing one much more commodious, called the 
Cycle of Epacts . It was invented by the 
famous Lilius, known in the history of the 
Calendar under the name of Aloysius Li¬ 
lius, or Lewis Lilio. He was a Physician, 
and very eminent in the sciences necessary 
fot* this invention. This Cycle is a suc¬ 
cession of numbers from 1 to 30, so disposed 
in each month of the year, that they per¬ 
petually give the new moon, as may be seen 
in the following exposition; hence the Gre¬ 
gorian Calendar obtained the epithet per* 
petual. 

To understand these successions, let us 
see how they are found. By the Epact is 
meant the number of days which the Lunar 
year differs from the Solar corresponding to 

it. 



44 


it. But to make this definition more intel¬ 
ligible, it must be observed, that years are 
of two kinds ; those which the course of 
the sun regulates, by its return to the same 
point of the firmament, are called Solar 
years, or Civil years with us, and ordinarily 
consists of 365 days, divided into 12 
months ; and these called Lunar years, be¬ 
cause regulated by the course of the moon. 
The Lunar year consists of 12 lunations, or 
Lunar months. Now a Lunar month is the 
interval between one new moon and the 
next. This interval was computed by the 
ancient astronomers to be 29f days; but to 
avoid the embarrassment of this fraction of 
a day, it was agreed that the Lunar months 
should consist alternately of 30 and 29 days, 
call the former jull , the latter cave , or hol- 
low months. Now six full and six hollow 
months make only 354 days, consequently 
the Lunar year is 11 days shorter than the 
common Solar year. Therefore, if a Lunar 
year begins the 1st of January, it will end 

the 


•45 


the 20th of December. Thus the second 
common Solar year will only commence 
when the second Lunar year is already ad¬ 
vanced 11 days. The second Lunar year 
then will have 11 for Epact. The two lumi¬ 
naries proceeding regularly in their course, 
it is evident that, at the end of the third 
Solar year, the moon will be 22 days before 
the sun : 22 then will be the Epact of the 
third year. At the end of the third year, 
the moon will be advanced 33 days, which 
makes a lunation of 30 days to be added to 
the 36 Lunar months already passed, in or¬ 
der to rank with the 36 correspondent So¬ 
lar months. The 3 days over are the Epact 
of the fourth year. In general, the age of 
the moon at the 1st January is always the 
Epact of the new year. 

The intercalation of the 13th moon was 
introduced among the Greeks, with the 
Cycle of 19 years. These intercalations 

they 


46 


they called Embolisms , and the years of 
thirteen lunations Embolismie . 

These things being premised, we come 
to the investigation of the Cycle of Epacts. 
Suppose that the 1st of January of the first 
year of a Lunar Cycle be the day of new 
moon, the moon then this year will have no 
age, consequently the current Epact will be 
an 0, or cypher ; that of the following year 
will be 11 , i. e. the moon will be 11 days 
old at the commencement of the 13th Solar 
month. This being an odd moon should have 
30 days, according to the alternate order of 
full and hollow months, (for it was agreed to 
make the odd lunations to consist of 30 days 
eaclC, 19 days more were then wanting to 
complete the 13th moon, and consequently 
the 14th cannot commence sooner than the 
20th of January. Thus the Epact 11 must 
directly answer to the 20th day ; and suc¬ 
cessively answer to all the other days of 
new moon in the same year: but the 14th 

lunation 


47 


lunation consisting only of 29 days, the 
15th must consequently begin the 18th of 
February; and it is opposite to this that 
Lilius placed the Epact 11. Then he 
reckoned 30 days for the 15th lunation, 
(and 31 in leap years on account of the in¬ 
tercalated day in February,) and he found 
that the 16th moon commenced the 20th 
of March. He there placed the current 
Epact, and so on to the end of the second 
year of the Cycle. 

The third having for Epact 22, u e. the 
25th moon being 22 days advanced at the 1st 
of January, the third year, the 26th moon, 
must begin the 9th January. So Lilius 
placed opposite this day the Epact 22, 
which he afterwards carried to the 7th of 
February, the 9th March, &c. 

By this disposition, the 30 numbers, de¬ 
signed to stand for all Epacts possible, 
were arranged in a retrograde order; so 
that the number 30 answered to the 1st Ja¬ 
nuary, 


48 


Hilary, and the number 29, 28, 27, 26, &c. 
to 1, answered respectively to the 2d, 3d, 
4th, 5th, &c. to the 30th, of the same 
month. After which a new reckoning began 
always following the same order. But as 
12 times 30 makes 360, Lilius imagined 
that to reduce these 368 Epacts to 354, 
being the number of days in the Lunar 
year, it would suffice to double 6 Epacts. 
This reduction ought to have two condi¬ 
tions ; the first, that all the even months 
(being hollow) should consist of 29 days 
only j the second, that, in conformity to 
the ancient custom, all the Paschal moons 
should consist also of 29 days only. To 
accomplish the first condition he doubled 
an Epact each even month, such as Fe¬ 
bruary, April, &c. and by this means re¬ 
duced the Epacts to 354 ; to accomplish 
the second condition, it was necessary to 
re-unite two Epacts under one of the 29 
days, comprised under the two limits of the 
Paschal moons \ these limits are the 8th of 

March, 


49 


March and the 5th of April, inclusively. 
This re-union he was obliged to effect, not 
only under one of these 29 days, but also in 
the month of April: this could only be 
done the first 5 days of this month—he 
chose the 5th ; and as Epact 25 corres¬ 
ponded to this day, he joined to it the fol¬ 
lowing Epact 24. He did the same in the 
other even months; and this is the reason 
we see in them the two Epacts joined. With 
this precaution, and some others, which 
equally denote Lilius’ singular foresight, 
the new Calendar is brought to that per¬ 
fection which precludes any essential error. 

We shall conclude this subject with some 
definitions relative to the subject treated of 
therein. There are two principal and dis¬ 
tinguished periods in Chronology, viz. the 
Dionysian and the Julian. The Dionysian 
period was invented by Victor of Aquitain, 
and from him is also called the Victorian 
period j but better known under the name 
d of 


50 


of the Dionysian, on account of Dionysius, 
surnamed the Little , who first introduced 
it about the beginning of the 6th century, 
in order to determine'the day of Easter. It 
is a revolution of 532 years, produced by 
multiplying the Solar Cycle 28, by the Lu¬ 
nar Cycle 19. Victor, in forming it, in¬ 
tended to comprehend all the variations 
possible of the Golden number, combined 
with the numbers of the Solar Cycle, so 
that, in the course of each period, there 
would not be two years having the same 
Golden number and the same Solar Cycle. 

For the Dionysian period, Joseph Julius 
Scaliger substituted the Julian, so called 
because it was formed of Julian years, 
every fourth of which is Bissextile. This 
period is of 7980 years, and is produced by 
the continual multiplication of the three 
Cycles, viz. that of the Solar 28, of the Lu¬ 
nar 19, and of the Roman Indiction, a 
Cycle of 15 years. The origin of this Cycle 


seems 


51 


seems as high as the time of Augustus; 
but, according to Baromus, it was instituted 
by Constantine about the year 312. Therp 
are commonly reckoned three sorts of In¬ 
dictions: 1st. The Caesarian, or Imperial, 
by which the times of paying taxes were in¬ 
dicated to the Roman subjects; also the 
dating of papers from the current year of 
Indiction. It began on the 8th of the Ca¬ 
lends of October.—2d. The Constantino- 
politan, by which they marked (as they do 
at this day) the more oriental Calendars, 
as appears in the briefs of the Hreremaiti 
Patriarch, and of Crusius’s Tarco Grecia . 
This begins on the Calends of Septem¬ 
ber.—The 3d is called the Pontifical, or the 
Roman, which begins on the Calends of 
January, and is now used. None of these 
hath any connection with the celestial mo¬ 
tions, being only a series of numbers from 
1 to 15—a number for each year. The 
fourth year of this Cycle corresponded with 
the first year of our Saviour’s nativity, ac- 
d 2 cording 


52 


cording to the most received system among 
the Chronologists. The Julian period, con¬ 
sisting of such a vast number of years, 
hath this advantage, that, in the interval of 
7980 years, there are not two which agree 
in the same Golden number, in the same 
Solar Cycle, and the same Indiction. 

All the Latins agree, that the first year 
of Dionysius’ Christian Era had for its cha¬ 
racters, the Solar Cycle 10, the Lunar 2, the 
Roman Indiction 4; which three Cycles 
are found to coincide in the year 4714 of 
the Julian period only, as Scaliger noted ; 
and Patavius remarks, “ The beginning of 
the years of Christ, which men call the 
Christian Era, is as it were the limit and 
hinge of Chronology, and the common 
term in which the reasonings of all Chrono- 
logers meet, as if they were drawn through 
many turnings and windings into the same 
computation.” 


It 


It is to Dionysius the Little we owe the 
custom of counting the years of the birth 
of our Saviour. Till then the Christians had 
followed in this respect the custom esta¬ 
blished in their several countries. The 
most part, however, reckoned from the 
foundation of Rome, or the succession of 
Consuls, or that of Emperors. Rut in the 
6th age, the Christian Era of Dionysius was 
generally adopted in the Church. It be¬ 
gins the 25th March, the day of our Sa¬ 
viour’s incarnation ; and this is the Epoch 
whence all the dates of Bulls and Briefs of 
the Court of Rome are supposed to be de¬ 
rived. The ordinary custom, however, is 
to date the beginning of the year from the 
1st of January. Thus the Era of Diony¬ 
sius begins 9 months before the Era ordi¬ 
nary among Christians. 

There is a crowd of other Eras, which 
may be seen in Petau’s Rationarum Tern- 
poram . Du Cange hath also made very 
d 3 large 


54 


large Tables of all these matters, especially 
for the principal Epochs of the Orientals. 

The opinion chiefly followed, places the 
birth of our Saviour under the year 4000, 
from the creation of the world ; but there 
are good reasons for supposing it later. 
According to the common system, the be¬ 
ginning of our Era answers to the 776th 
year of the Olympiads, the 752d from the 
foundation of Rome, and to the 747th of 
the Era of Nabonassor, King of Babylon. 
This last is famous among astronomers, 
on account of the great use which Ptolemy, 
among others, made of it. It commenced the 
26th February. But if we would compare 
it with the Christian Era, we must remem¬ 
ber that its years consisted only of 365 
days. 

In the Roman Martyrology, published by 
the authority of Pope Gregory XIII. and re¬ 
vised by the command of Pope Urban VIII. 

we 


55 


we find the following words, which are, every 
year, on the 25th day of December, read in 
public:—“ In the 5199th year from the 
creation of the world, when God created 
heaven and earth; in the 2957th after the 
deluge; the 2015th from the birth of 
Abraham ; the 1510th from Moses, and the 
time of the Israelites leaving Egypt; in 
the 1032d from the time of David’s being 
anointed King; in the 65th week, accord¬ 
ing to the prophecy of Daniel; in the 
194th Olympiad ; in the 752d year since the 
building of Rome; in the 42d of the reign of 
the Emperor Octavius Augustus, when the 
whole world was blessed with peace; in 
the 6th age of the world—Jesus Christ, 
Eternal God, and Son of the Eternal Fa¬ 
ther, conceived of the Holy Ghost, was 
born of the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem of 
Judea.” 

The years of the Turks and Arabs have 
only 354 days; these are Lunar years: 

hence 


56 


hence their principal feast, the Bairam, 
happens successively in all the seasons of 
the year. The flight of Mahomet, or the 
Hegira, answers to the 622d year of our 
Era. It commences the l6thof July. The 
Calendar of the Persian is much better di¬ 
gested than that of the other Mahometans. 
See in Herbelet, and in L’Histoire des 
Mathemaiiques of M. Montucla, the inge¬ 
nious correction which the two Sultans Ge- 
laliddin made therein, the 467th year of the 
Hegira, near five ages before the Calendar 
of the Christians had received its present 
degree of exactness. 

That also of the Jews deserves praise for 
its precision. A comparison of it with the 
Ephemeris justifies the favourable idea we 
ought to have of the Rabbins who laid 
the foundations of it. The Lunar year 
still regulates the Hebrew feasts. They 
use, however, the Solar year, and, with us, 
distinguish two kinds, the common and 

the 


57 


tlie Bissextile year ; denominations which 
they even apply to the Lunar year. They 
afterwards subdivide the common Lunar 
year and the Bissextile Lunar year into 
three others; so that the Lunar common 
year being never composed but of twelve 
moons, it can, however, be either defective, 
perfect, or common. In the first, it con¬ 
sists of 353 days; in the second , of 355 
days; and in the third, of 354. 

The Lunar Bissextile year is always of 13 
months; but if it be defective, it has but 

383 days, if perfect, 385, and if common, 

384 days. They call the intercalated 
moon Vender ; and, as we do, make it re¬ 
turn seven times in the course of a Lunar 
Cycle. By this means they obtain a con¬ 
stant rule to ascertain their three principal 
feasts to the time prescribed by the law. 
These feasts are PessaJi, or the feast of un¬ 
leavened bread; Sebuhot, or the feast of 
weeks ; Snccot , or the feast of the Taberna¬ 
cles. 


5 8 


cles. Pessah, or the Passover, always falls 
on the 15th day of the month Nisan, which 
answers to a part of March and a part of 
April. Sabuhot , or Pentecost, is celebrated 
seven weeks after. Succot, the 15 th of the 
month Tisri, which answers partly to the 
month of September. 

The Jewish months are Lunar, and have 
alternately SO and 29 days, according as 
they are perfect or defective; that is to 
say, according as they are full or hollow 
months. The first is called Nisan , the se¬ 
cond Jiar ; then follow in course, Sivan, 
Tamuz, Ab, Elul, Tisri, Hesvan , Casleu, 
Tabeth , Schebbat , and Adai\ Of these 12 
months, five are always perfect, viz. Nisan, 
Sivan, Ab, Tisri, and Schebbat ; five others 
are defective, Jiar , Tamuz, EM, Tabeth, , 
and Aclar . These two others, Hesvan and 
Casleu, are sometimes both perfect, some¬ 
times both defective, sometimes one is per¬ 
fect and the other defective. When they 


are 


are both perfect, the year is perfect; if 
they are defective, the year is also defec¬ 
tive ; in fine, the year is common, when 
one is perfect, and the other not. In the 
Leap year, the Jews make their month 
Adar of 30 days. 

Their civil year begins with the month 
Tisri; that of their ancient Kings began 
with the month Nisan , which is still the 
first of their legal year. They reckon 1780, 
to begin from the 26th of September, the 
5541st civil year since the creation of the 
world, and 1713th since the destruction of 
the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus. 

The Jews call the commencement of 
each month Roshodes . Now the Roshodes 
generajly happen the same day with the 
new moon, or the day following, or two days 
after at farthest. When Roshodes hath two 
days, they date the beginning of the month 
from the second day. If this month is pre¬ 
ceded 


60 


ceded by a perfect month, there are in it 
two days of Roshodes ; if it is preceded by 
a defective month, there is but one day. 
The Roshodes follow exactly the days of 
the week. So that if the Roshodes Nisctn 
happens on a Saturday, the Roshodes Jiar 
happens on a Sunday and Monday, the Ros- 
hodes Sivan on a Tuesday, the Roshodes Ta¬ 
mar on a Wednesday and Thursday, and so 
of the rest. 

The Jews still hold to the ancient manner 
of reckoning the days from the setting of 
the sun to the next setting. They make 
them consist of 24 hours, which they 
reckon one after another, as the Italians: 
but these hours are not equal, as ours, ex- 
cept at the equinoxes; because they di¬ 
vide them into 12 hours of day-light, while 
the sun is above the horizon, and into 12 
hours of night, while the sun is below the 
horizon, consequently they cannot be equal. 
Instead of dividing the hour into 60 parts 


or 


61 


or minutes, they divide theirs into 1080 
parts. See, on the feast of the Jews* and 
manner of calculating the new moons, Ca¬ 
lender Hebraique qui centient tous les Ros» 
bodes, Samedis, Solemnites etjeunes de Van- 
nee, by M. Venture, Amsterdam, 1770. 

The origin of numeral figures, used in 
Arithmetical computations, has been a sub¬ 
ject of dispute in the republic of letters. 
It is allowed that we are indebted for,them 
to the genius of the Eastern nations ; the 
Indians being reckoned the inventors of the 
notation, which we call Arabian, because 
we had it from them, and they from the 
Indians, as themselves acknowledge. But 
when the Indians invented this method, 
and how long it was before the Arabs got 
it, is uncertain. These things only we 
know : 1st. That we have no ground to be¬ 
lieve the ancient Greeks or Romans were 
acquainted with it; for Maximus Planudus, 
the first Greek writer who treats of Arith- 
e metic 


62 


metic according to this notation, lived 
about the year 1370, as Vossius says, or 
about 1270, according to Kircher, long after 
the Arabian notation was known in Eu¬ 
rope ; and owns it for his opinion, that the 
Indians were the inventors, from whom the 
Arabs got it, as the Europeans from them. 
2dly. That the Moors brought it into 
Spain, whither many Larned men from 
other parts of Europe went to seek that and 
the rest of the Arabic learning, (and even 
the Greek learning from the Arabic ver¬ 
sions, before they got the originals,) im¬ 
ported there by the Saracens. As to the 
time when this new art of computation was 
first known in Europe, Vossius thinks it 
was not before the year 1250 ; but Doctor 
Wallis has, by many good authorities, 
proved, that it was before the year 1000; 
particularly that Gerbertus, afterwards Pope 
by the name of Sylvester II. who died in 
1003, was acquainted with this art, and 
brought it from Spain into France long be¬ 
fore 


63 


fore his death. The Doctor shews that it 
was known in Britain before 1150, and 
brought a considerable length, even in 
common use, before 1250, as appears by the 
Treatise of Arithmetic of John de Sacro 
Bosco, who died about 1256. He also gave 
an instance from a Mantle Tree of a chimney 
in the parsonage house of Helendon, in 
Northamptonshire wherein is inscribed, in 
basso relievo, Mo. 133, being the date of 
the year 1133, (Philos. Trans. No. 255.) 
Another instance was discovered in the 
window of a house, part of which is a Ro¬ 
man wall, near the market place in Col¬ 
chester, where, between the carved Lions, 
stands an escutcheon, with the figures 
1090, (Philos. Trans, loc. cit.) Though 
our present numerals are somewhat dif¬ 
ferent in figure from the Arabian, having 
been changed since they first came among 
us, yet the art of computation by them is 
still the same.—(See Malcolm’s Arithmetic, 
London, 1730 ; Wallis, &c.) 

e 2 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER ITT, 


Of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge — 
their Origin and History. 

The chief Schools, which King Alfred, 
by the advice of St. Neot, founded, were 
those of Oxford, as the Archives of that 
University, produced by Wood, and as 
Brompton, Malmesbury, Higden, Harps- 
field, and others, assure us. Wood thinks 
this King founded there one College for all 
the sciences, besides Grammar Schools. 
Ayliffe, who is less accurate, in his history 
of Oxford, pretends that three Halls or Col¬ 
leges were erected there by that Prince, 
which is indeed affirmed by John Rouse, or 
Ross, the Warwick historian, who died in 
1491. Aserius of Menevia, in his life of 
King Alfred, names not Oxford, and may 
be understood of Schools set up by the 

King 


King in his own Palace ; but that St. Grim- 
bald taught at Oxford seems clear from his 
seat there in St. Peter’s Church. John the 
Saxon, and others, were his Colleagues. 
But St. Neot never left his solitude: and 
Aserius mentions, of himself, only his stay¬ 
ing in Alfred’s Court six months every year; 
for he would always spend the other six 
months in his Monastery at Menevia, or 
St. David’s. Wood, (page 4,) and others, 
Arnot in vit. Alfredi, p. 136, imagine 
Schools at Grecelade and Lechelade to 
have flourished under the Britons and 
Saxons, and to have been only translated to 
Oxford, and there revived by King Alfred, 
after the wars had interrupted them. But 
the monuments in which mention is made 
of them are at best very uncertain ; and 
Lechlade , so called from physicians, is a 
Saxon, not a British word. The Schools at 
Oxford decayed after Alfred’s reign, and 
that City was burnt by the Danes in 979, 
and again in 1009. Robert Poleyn, or Pullus, 
an Englishman, who had studied at Paris, 
e 3 return- 


66 


returning home, restored sacred studies at 
Oxford in 1133, in the reign of Henry I. 
and carried the glory of this University to 
the highest pitch. Being made Cardinal, 
and Chancellor of the Roman Church, by 
Lucius II. he obtained the greatest privi¬ 
leges for this University about the year 
1150. 

Nothing more sensibly betrays the weak¬ 
ness of human nature than the folly of 
seeking a false imaginary glory, especially 
in those who incontestably possess every 
most illustrious title of true greatness. 
Some weak and lying impostors pretended to 
raise the reputation of the University of 
Cambridge by forgeries, which it is a dis¬ 
grace not to despise, and most severely cen¬ 
sure. Nicholas Cantelupes, or Cantlow, 
in 1440, published a collection of forged 
Grants of British Kings, Gurgunt, Lu¬ 
cius, Arthur, and Cadwald, &c. and of 
several ancient Popes, under the title of the 
History of Cambridge: in which his simpli¬ 
city 


67 


city and credulity, which do not obscure the 
character of great piety which Leland gives 
him, ought not to impose upon our under¬ 
standings.—(See Parker’s History of Cam¬ 
bridge '.) Cair Grant was one of the twenty - 
eight Cities of Britain under the Romans, 
but fallen to decay when Bede wrote.— 
Hist. 1. 4. c. 19. From its ruins Cam¬ 
bridge arose at a small distance, as appears 
from Henry of Huntington, and the writers 
of Croyland and Ramsey. Some have pre¬ 
tended that here was the School which 
Bede, or the Schools which Malmesbury, 
Florentius, and Henry of Huntingdon say 
King Sigebert founded, by the advice of St. 
Felix, in 636. But it is more reasonable 
to believe those foundations to have been 
made near Dummoc, in Suffolk. And what- 
ever Schools might flourish at Cambridge 
under the Saxons, it is certain there were 
no remains under the first Norman Kings. 
The foundation of this seat of the sciences 
was laid in the reign of Henry II. Peter 
of Blois, a contemporary writer, in his Con¬ 
tinuation 


68 


tinuation of Tngulpftius* History , published 
by Gale, (Script. Hist. Ang. i. p. 114) 
relates, that Soffrid, Abbot of Croyland, 
sent some learned Monks of that House to 
their Manor of Cotenham, near Cam¬ 
bridge, who, hiring a great House in Cam¬ 
bridge, went thither every day, and taught, 
at different hours, the whole circle of 
the sciences, a great concourse of Stu¬ 
dents resorting to their lessons. From 
these beginnings that University soon rose 
to the highest. degree of splendor, and 
Peterhouse was the first regular College 
that was erected there, Hugh Balsham, 
Bishop of Ely, founding it in 1284» 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER IV. 

Of the Origin of the Institution of Academical 
Degi'ees. 

The General Study of Paris, as it was at 
first called, was founded by Charlemagne 
about the year 800. King Lewis VI. sur- 
named the Big , or the Fat, was not only a 
great scholar, but a most zealous patron of 
the sciences. He succeeded his father, 
Philip I. in 1110. By his protection and 
encouragement, studies began to flourish 
exceedingly, and there were in his reign 
more Students than Citizens at Paris, to 
which the name of Academy was first given 
about that time. In the following century 
it was called the University, from the whole 
circle of sciences being there taught. The 
number of Students was much increased by 

the 


70 


the liberty which every one had of dispos¬ 
ing of himself as he pleased, after Lewis 
the Big had abolished many severe cus¬ 
toms concerning vassalages, and began to 
loosen the hard servitude of the people 
under their immediate Lords, who were a 
kind of subaltern Sovereigns in their own 
Estates. So many set up for teachers, and 
some, like Abelard, sold their lessons at so 
dear a rate, that such an abuse stood in 
need of a restraint. Ecolatrcs , or Scholas¬ 
tics, were established in Cathedrals in the 
11th century, who often governed the 
Bishops’ Seminaries. An order was pub¬ 
lished in the 12th century, that none should 
teach without their licence. In Universi¬ 
ties, Academical Degrees were introduced, 
in the same age, for the purpose of licens¬ 
ing persons to teach. Some moderns 
falsely ascribe their institution at Bologna 
to Gratian, and at Paris to Peter Lombard, 
and Gilbert de la Porree, before this latter 
went to Poitiers, Egasivus Bulrnus. Hist. 

Univ. 


71 


Univ. Paris, p. 2,55.—(See this groundless 
assertion confuted by the authors of the 
Hist . Liter air e, p. 83. The Degree of 
Licentiate was first given at Paris in the 
12th age, and consisted originally in a 
public licence given to teach. Soon after 
that of a Master, or Doctor, was added. 
In conferring the degree, a Wand, or Ba¬ 
cillus , was delivered, whence the name Bac- 
ealaureus. This title was, sometime after, 
made an inferior distinct title. 


CHAPTER 



CHAPTER V 


An Account of the Destruction of the Temple of Se- 
rapis , in Alexandria—and a Description of it — 
and its Idols . 

About the year 292, Theophilus, Pa¬ 
triarch of Alexandria, obtained a rescript 
of the Emperor Theodosius, to convert an 
old deserted Temple of Bacchus into a 
Christian Church. In clearing this place, 
in the subterraneous secret caverns, called 
by the Greeks Adyta, and held by the Pa¬ 
gans as sacred, were found infamous and 
ridiculous figures, which Theophilus caused 
to be exposed in public, to shew the extra¬ 
vagant superstitions of the Idolaters. The 
heathens in tumults raised a sedition,*killed 
many Christians in the streets, and then re¬ 
tired into the great Temple of Serapis as 

their 


73 


their fortress. The Temple of Serapis was 
most stately and rich, built on an eminence 
raised by art, in a beautiful spacious square, 
with an ascent of 100 steps, Surrounded 
with lofty edifices for the priests and offi¬ 
cers. The Temple was built of marble, 
supported with precious pillars, and the 
walls on the inside were covered with plates 
of brass, silver, and gold. The idol was of 
so enormous a size, that its arms being ex¬ 
tended, they reached to the opposite walls 
of the Temple : its figure was that of a ve¬ 
nerable old man, with a beard, and long' 
hair, but with it was joined a monstrous 
figure of an animal with three heads: the 
biggest in the middle was that of a lion ; 
that of a dog fawning came out on the right 
side, and that of a ravenous wolf on the 
left; a serpent was represented twining 
round these three animals, and laying its 
head on the right hand of Serapis. On the 
idol’s head was placed a bushel, an emblem 
of the fertility of the earth. The statue 
f was 


74 


was made of precious stone, wood, and all 
sorts of fnetal together ; its colour was at 
first blue, but the streams or moisture of the 
place had turned it black. A hole in the 
Temple was contrived to admit the sun’s 
rays upon its mouth, at the hour when the 
idol of the sun was brought in to visit it. 
Many other artifices were employed to de¬ 
ceive the people into an opinion of its mira¬ 
cles. No idol was so much respected in 
Egypt j and, on its account, Alexandria 
was looked upon as the holy city. 

The Emperor Theodosius being informed 
of the above-mentioned sedition, sent an 
order to demolish the Temples in Egypt. 
When this letter was read at Alexandria, 
the pagans raised hideous cries; many left 
the city, and all withdrew from the Temple 
of Serapis. The idol was cut down by 
pieces, and thrown into a fire. The hea¬ 
thens were persuaded that if any one should 
touch it, the heavens would fall, and the 

world 


75 


world return into the state of its primitive 
chaos. Seeing no such judgment threaten, 
they began themselves to deride a senseless 
trunk reduced to ashes. The standard of 
the Nile’s increase was kept in this Temple, 
but it was on this occasion removed into 
the Cathedral. The idolaters expected the 
river would swell no more; but finding 
the succeeding years very fertile, they con¬ 
demned the vanity of their superstitions, 
and embraced the faith. Two Churches 
were built on the place where this Temple 
stood, and its metal was converted to the 
use of Churches. The Busts of Serapis, 
on the walls, doors, and windows of the 
houses, were broken and taken away. 
The Temples all over Egypt were demo¬ 
lished during the two following years. In 
pulling down those of Alexandria, the cruel 
mysteries of Mithra were discovered, and 
in the secret Adyta were found the heads 
of many infants cut off, cruelly mangled, 
and superstitiously painted. The artifices 
f 2 of 


70 


of the Priests of the idols were likewise de¬ 
tected ; there were hollow idols of wood 
and brass, placed against a wall, with sub¬ 
terraneous passages, through which the 
Priests entered the hollow trunks of the 
idols, and gave answers as Oracles, as is 
related by Theodoret and Rufinus. 


CHAPTER 



CHAPTER VI. 



Some Observations on Burying Places—•with an 

Account of the Mode followed by the Ancients . 

The ancients had their Eurying-places 
without their cities. This was an ancient 
and inviolable custom both in the East and 
West, never to suffer any one to be interred 
in towns, which the heathens looked upon 
as a sacrilege. Among the Romans it was 
a law of the twelve tables : Inira pomceria 
ne sepelito neve comburito . It were to be 
wished that this law had never been transgres¬ 
sed ; for by repeated experiments it is de¬ 
monstrated, that burials, multiplied within 
towns, especially in Churches, extremely 
infect the air, and render the place un¬ 
wholesome, and sometimes poisonous. Oil 
which may be read the late curious Disser- 
f 3 tatiops 


78 


tations of several very eminent French 
Surgeons. To this day the consecration of 
the Churches shews that they are not in¬ 
tended for burying places; whereas both 
the name cemetery, and the form used in 
blessing a Church-yard, directs this to be 
the place designed for that purpose. An¬ 
ciently great personages were buried in the 
porches, as Constantine the Great was in 
that of the Apostles’ Church at Constanti¬ 
nople, &c. whence St. Chrysostom writes, 
Horn. 26. that Emperors esteemed it an 
honour to be buried near the porches of 
the Apostles. None but the bodies of 
Martyrs and Saints were allowed to be 
placed in Churches, till about the ninth 
century. Persons of eminent sanctity were 
allowed that privilege ; and the law being 
once broken into, and a gap made, the li¬ 
berty soon became general, though several 
Canons were framed to check the abuse— 
See 1. i. capitul. cap. 158. (Council of 
Rouen in 1581, and that of Rheims in 

1583, 


79 


1583, &c.) Custom hath now derogated 
from the law so far, as to autho¬ 
rise the practice ; though it were to be 
wished that, for great cities, a decent 
burying-place were built without the walls, 
as that for the great Hospital out of Milan, 
with a Chapel in the middle. For the mo¬ 
numents of illustrious persons anciently 
Cloisters were built near great Churches, 
as those near the Cathedral of Vienne in 
Dauphine, &c. The most finished model 
1st he Campo Santo at Pisa. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER VII. 



An Account how the Ancients began their year—as 
also of the Julian year—and of the New Style es¬ 
tablished by Pope Gregory XIII . 

The ancients began the year, some from 
the autumnal, others from the vernal equi¬ 
nox. The primitive patriarchs from that 
of autumn, that is, from the month called 
by the Hebrews Tisri, which coincides 
with part of our September and October. 
Hence it seems probable, that the world 
was created about that season'; the earth, 
as appears from Gen. iii. 2. being then 
covered with trees, plants, fruits, seeds, and 
all other things, in the state of their natu¬ 
ral maturity and perfection. The Jews 
retained this commencement of the year 
as a date for contracts, and other civil pur¬ 
poses ; 


81 


poses ; as also for their Sabbatical year and 
jubilee. But God commanded them to be¬ 
gin their ecclesiastical year, or that by 
which their religious festivals were regu¬ 
lated, from the spring equinox, or the He¬ 
brew month Nisan, the same with part of 
our March and April, Exod. xii. 2. Chris¬ 
tian nations commenced the year, some 
from the 25th March, the feast of the An¬ 
nunciation, and bordering upon the equi¬ 
nox ; others from Christmass ; others from 
its Octave day, the 1st January, in which our 
ancestors have often varied their practice. 
Europe is now agreed in fixing the 1st Ja¬ 
nuary for this Epoch. 

The Julian year, so called from Julius 
Caesar, from whom the Roman Calendar 
received its first reformation, consisted of 
365 days and 6 hours, which exceeded the 
true Solar year by 11 minutes; for astro¬ 
nomers compute the yearly revolution of 
the sun not to exceed 365 days, 5 hours, 

48 


82 


48 minutes, and 37 seconds, according to 
Cassini; but, according to Keil, 57 seconds, 
or almost 47 minutes. This error becoming 
daily more sensible, would have occasioned 
the autumnal equinox to have at length 
fallen on the day reckoned the solstice, 
and, in process of time, on that held for the 
vernal equinox. The Golden Number, or 
Grecian Cycle of the Lunar years, was 
likewise defective. To remedy both which 
Pope Gregory .XIII. in 1582, established 
the New Style. Scaliger, Tachet, and 
Cassini have demonstrated that Cycles 
might be chosen still more exact, by some 
few seconds; however, this adopted by Pope 
Gregory, besides being the easiest in the 
execution, admits of no material error, or 
sensible inconveniency. This correction of 
the Style was received by Act of Parlia¬ 
ment, in Great Britain, in 1752 ; for the 
promoting of which great praise is due to 
the two illustrious ornaments of the repub¬ 
lic of letters, the Earls of Chesterfield and 
Macclesfield. chapter 


CHAPTER VIII. 


The Number of Monasteries } Cloisters , and Nun¬ 
neries in Scotland—their Names—the Shires in 
which they were situated—their Church Orders , 
and Founders . 


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CHAPTER IX. 


The Taxt Roll of the Prelacies , erected Lordships , 
and other inferior Benefices , for the Prelates , 
Lords of Erection , and small Beneficed Men — 
their parts of the same Taxation, pro termino . 


The Archbishop of Orkney 
Archdeanry of Zetland 
Bishoprick of Caithness 
Deanry of Caithness 
Chantry of do. 

Archdeanry of do. 
Thesaury of Caithness 
Prebendary of Dunnet 
Parsonage of Kirkmichael 
Bishoprick of Ross 
Abbacy of Feme 
Priory of Bewalie 
Deanry of Ross 
Subdeanry of do. 
Subchantry of do. 
Archdeanry of do. 

g 3 


X. s . d. 
394 9 0 

27 10 0 
344 9 O 

20 13 4 

27 10 8 

41 6 8 

30 0 0 

14 12 O 
25 0 0 

413 6 8 

137 15 O 
103 6 8 

41 8 6 

62 0 0 
20 13 4 

41 6 8 


92 




L. 

S. 

d. 

Parsonage of Tullinessill 

20 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Ruthven 

82 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Baihelvie 

49 

10 

0 

Do. 

of Inuerourie 

20 

13 

4 

Vicarage of Carbes 

35 

5 

6 

Do. 

of Peterugie 

25 

16 

8 

Do. 

of Logiedurn 

20 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Coul 

20 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Oboyn 

20 

13 

4 

Do. 

ofLunzie 

20 

] 3 

4 

The Common Kirks of Aber- 




dee n 


139 

6 

0 

Parsonage of Fetteresso 

103 

6 

8 

Do. 

of Arbuthnot 

68 

17 

8 

Do. 

ofBenholme 

51 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Fettercairn 

68 

17 

8 


Parsonage of Conbeth mortified to the New 


College oj St. Andrew's 

Do. of Conbeth 

68 

17 

8 

Do. of Durris 

25 

16 

8 

Vicarage of Forden 

27 

10 

5 

Bishoprick of Brechin 

344 

9 

0 

Deanry of Brechin 

55 

0 

8 

Chantry of do. 

55 

0 

8 

Chancellory of do. * 

27 

10 

8 

Thesaury of do. 

20 

13 

4 

Archdeanry of do. 

34 

7 

4 

Vicarage of Brechin 

34 

7 

1 

Parsonage of Phinheaven 

34 

7 

1 

Do. of Glenbervie 

34 

7 

1 


03 


Parsonage of Lathnot 

L. 

51 

S, 

13 

d. 

4 

Vicarage of Dundee 

68 

17 

8 

Do. of Panbryde 

20 

13 

4 

Lordship of Arbroath 

2066 

13 

4 

Do. of Scoon 

861 

2 

2 

Do. of Cupar 

861 

2 

2 

Do. of Restenneth 

27 5 

10 

8 

Pryorie of Charterhouse 

344 

9 

0 

Do. of Elcho 

103 

6 

8 

Parsonage of Naba 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Essie 

28 

6 

8 

Vicarage of Kerry moor e 

34 

7 

4 

Parsonage of Kennethe 

34 

7 

4 

Do. of Inveraritie 

41 

6 

8 


Parsonage of Tanadyce mortified jto the New 


College 0 / St, Andrew's 


’arsonage 

of Tanadyce - 

68 

17 

6 

Do. 

of Dunlippie 

20 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Logie, Montrose 

41 

6 

8 

Do. 

of Inchbriock 

68 

17 

8 

Mortided to the same College 




Do. 

of Edvvie 

41 

6 

8 

Do. 

of Kinnel 

41 

6 

8 

Do. 

of Edzell 

34 

7 

4 

Do. 

of Dumbarny 

62 

0 

0 


Mortified to the College of Edinburgh 
Do. of Kinnoul - 55 O 8 

Vicarage of Langforgun 20 13 4 

Pro vestry of Methven - 82134 

Parsonage of Forteviot 62 0 0 


94 


L . s. d . 

Mortified to the Old College of St. Andrew's 
Do. ofCulless - 20 13 4 


Bishoprick of Dunkeld 

1033 

6 

8 

Abbay of St. Colu mb 

239 

16 

10 

Pryorie pf Straphillan 

35 

5 

8 

Chantry of Dunkeld 

27 

10 

8 

Chancellory of do. 

35 

5 

8 

Thesaury of do. 

35 

5 

8 

Deanery of Dunkeld 

123 

6 

8 

Parsonage of Menmore - 

51 

13 

4 

Prebendary of Fingirth 

27 

10 

8 

Parsonage of Monythie 

- 27 

10 

8 

Prebendary of Forgandenny 

28 

5 

0 

Parsonage of Muckarsie 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Feme 

27 

10 

8 

Do. ofLunderst 

- 23 

5 

0 

Prebendary of Ahiht 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Crieff 

62 

0 

0 

Common Kirk of Ochterless 

41 

6 

8 

Do. of Megill 

41 

6 

8 

Do. of Tanling 

26 

1 

2 

Do. of Fothergill 

34 

10 

0 

Vicarage of Strageith 

20 

13 

4 

Arch dean ry of Dunkeld 

56 

2 

8 

Vicarage of Tibbermuir 

- 20 

13 

4 

Do. of Logyrait 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Doll 

40 

5 

0 

Parsonage of Weyme 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Strowane 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Blair 

20 

13 

4 


95 


L. s. 

Vicarage of Cargill - 20 13 

Bishoprick of Dumblain 344 9 

Lordship of Inchaffray 516 6 

Pryorie of Inchmahome - 275 10 

Lordship of Culross 344 9 

Deanery of Dumblaine - 27 10 

Chancellory and Archdeanry,each 27 10 
Provostry of Abernethe 27 10 

Vicarage of Aberfoull - 20 13 

Parsonage of Tulliallane - 20 13 
Vicarage of Abernethie 20 13 

Parsonage of St. Madois 28 6 

Archbishoprick of St. Andrew’s 1722 4 

Pryorie of St. Andrew’s - 1722 4 

Lordship of Dunfermline 1722 4 
Do. of Lindores - 861 2 

Do. of Balemrinock 275 10 

Pryorie of Portmook - 55 O 

Mortified to St. Leonard's College of 
Andrew's 

Pryorie of Pittenweym - 206 13 

Ministry of Scotlandwell 42 18 

Archdeanry of St. Andrew’s 165 7 

Mortified to the Bishoprick 
Provostry of Currail - 416 

Vicarage of Kilrynie - 20 13 

Do. of Kinnewchar 41 6 

Do. of Largo - 20 13 

Do. ofScome - 27 10 

Vicarage of Kenowie - 10 15 


d. 

4 

O 

8 

8 

O 

8 

8 

8 

4 

4 

4 

8 

6 

6 

6 

4 

10 

8 

St. 

4 

6 

8 

8 

4 

8 

4 

8 

10 


96 


L. s. cl. 

Parsonages of Curbert , Kombach , and Dyn- 
mott mortified to the Colleges of St. An¬ 
drew's ; Curbert to the New—the others to 
the Old 

Parsonage of Curbert 
Do. of Kemback 
Do. of Dunynon 
Vicarage of St. Andrew’s 
Parsonage of Flisk 
Vicarage of Leuchars 
Do. of Coupar 
Do. of Markinch 
Parsonage of Flisk 
Parsonage of Dissart 
Vicarage of Kirkaldie 
Do. of Kinghorne 
Do. of Lawthrish 
Parsonage of Quhili 
Mortified to the College Oj 
Provostrie of Kirkheuch 
Parsonage of Ochterdera 
Do. of Bullingue 
Sacristanry of Dunfermline 
Parsonage of Muckert 
Abbey of Cambuskenneth 
Preceptory of Corphlthen 
Priory Manuell 
Lordship of Holyrudhouse 
Do. of New Bottle 
Do. of Kelso 


27 

10 

8 

27 

10 

8 

- 34 

7 

4 

68 

17 

8 

51 

13 

4 

34 

17 

4 

27 

10 

8 

27 

10 

8 

51 

13 

4 

68 

17 

8 

27 

10 

8 

34 

17 

8 

20 

13 

4 

34 17 

r St. Andrew's 

8 

- 82 

13 

4 

51 

13 

4 

41 

6 

8 

5 68 

17 

4 

34 

17 

4 

861 

2 

2 

516 

13 

4 

55 

0 

8 

1377 

15 

6 

688 

17 

8 

13,770 

15 

6 


P7 



L. 

s. 

d. 

Lordship of Coldinghame 

688 

17 

8 

Do. of Dryburgh 

688 

17 

8 

Pryorie of Eccies 

172 

4 

4 

Do. of Coldstream 

172 

4 

4 

Do. of North Berwick 

516 

13 

4 

Do. of Haddington 

516 

13 

4 

Kirk of Honytoun 

41 

6 

8 

Vicarage of Stirling 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Hamanan 

20 

6 

8 

Vicarage of Falkirk 

62 

0 

0 

Do. Of Strabroch 

51 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Inchmanthan 

34 

7 

4 

Do. of Calder Counter 

55 

0 

8 

Do. of Kirknewton 

27 

10 

8 

Provostrie of Costerphin 

27 

10 

8 


Parsonage, ofGogar mortified to the College 
of Edinburgh 


Parsonage of Gogar 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of St. Cuthbert’s 

Kirk 27 

10 

8 

Do. of Pentland 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Penicook 

41 

6 

8 

Do. of Lasswade 

103 

6 

8 

Do. of Melville 

20 

13 

4 

Vicarage of Cramond 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Restalrig 

- 103 

6 

8 

The Archdeanry of Lothian y Provostry of 


St. GeiVs Kirk and Trinity College , mor¬ 
tified to the College of Edinburgh 
Archdeanry of Lothian - 103 6 8 


H 



98 


L. s. d. 

Provostry of St. Geil’s Kirk 82 13 4 

Do. of the Trinity College 62 O O 
Do. of St. Antheni’s in 

Leith - 34 7 4 

Vicarage of Linlithgow - 32 8 2 

Do. of Aberlady 20 13 4 

Do. of Tranent - 20 13 4 

Vicarage of Tynningliam mortified to the 
College of Edinburgh 


Parsonage of Tynningham 

55 

0 

0 

Vicarage of Gullan 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Pencaidland 

17 

17 

0 

Do. of Haddington 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Thorington 

27 

10 

8 

Provostry of Crichton 

51 

13 

4 

Do. of Dalkeith 

16 

5 

0 

Parsonage of Keith marshall 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Lintown 

103 

6 

8 

Do. of Auldhamstocks 

62 

0 

0 

Do. of Dunbar 

34 

7 

4 

Archpriestry of Dunbar 

41 

6 

8 

Prebendary of Pi near ton 

27 

10 

8 

Parsonage of Laula 

34 

7 

4 

Provostry of Bothams 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Morham 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Petcocks 

34 

7 

4 

Do. of Boltoun 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Spott 

27 

10 

8 

Deanry of Dunbar 

68 

17 

4 

Vicarage of Musselburgh 

27 

10 

8 


99 ' 



L. 

s. 

d. 

Provostry of Dunglass 

27 

10 

8 

Parsonage of Upsadletoun 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Whitsume 

68 

18 

4 

Vicarage of Ersiltoun 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Duns 

51 

13 

4 

Do. of Elian, or Ellon 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Polwart 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Chirnside 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Foul den 

20 

13 

4 

Abbey of Jedburgh 

516 

13 

4 

Lordship of Melrosse 

1240 

0 

0 

Ministry of Peebles 

103 

6 

8 

Parsonage of Ashkirk 

26 

5 

0 

Do. of Auld Roxburgh 

62 

0 

0 

Do. of Marbothe 

55 

0 

0 

Do. of Ancrmn 

34 

7 

8 

Do. of Hawick 

82 

13 

4 

Do. of Wilton 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Minto 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Linden 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Limpetlaw mortified 
College of Edinburgh 

to 

the 

Do. of Limpetlaw 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Suddoine 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Lintoun 

20 

13 

4 

Vicarage of Cassiltoun 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Bedrule 

20 

13 

4 

Do. # of Ettilston 

68 

17 

4 

Parsonage of Stobo 

H 2 

134 

8 

8 




*00 


Vicarage of Peebles 

L. $. 

27 10 

d. 

8 

Do. of Innerletham 

34 7 

4 

Do. of Kibbotho 

26 16 

4 

Parsonage of Skirling 

34 7 

4 

Parsonage of Kir laird mortihed to the CoU 

lege of Edinburgh 
Parsonage of Kirkurd 

- 27 10 

8 

Vicarage of Lintoun 

27 10 

8 

Parsonage of New lands 

82 13 

4 

Do. of Eyne 

20 13 

4 

Vicarage of Stobo 

34 7 

4 

Archbishoprick of Glasgow 

1033 6 

8 

Lordship of Paisley 

1387 15 

6 

Abbacy of Kilwinning 

688,17 

10 

Do. of Corfraquell 

275 10 

0 

Minister of Haill 

172 4 

4 


Pryorie of Blantyre - 20 13 4 

Abbacy of Holy wood 234 16 10 

Do. of New Abbey 344 8 8 

The Deanry of Glasgow comprehends the 
KirJcs of Dalgerjfe and Hamilton 
Deanry of Glasgow - 133 6 8 

The Chantry of Glasgow , or Kirk of KiU 
hride y mortified*to the College of Glasgow 
Chantry of Glasgow, or Kirk 

of Kilbryde - 82134 

Parsonage of Renfrew mortified thereto 
Chancellory of Glasgow 82 13 4 

Thesaury of Glasgow - 82 13 4 

Archdeanry of Glasgow 138 6 8 


101 



L. 

S. 

d. 

Subdeanry of Glasgow 

138 

6 

8 

Parsonage of Glasgow 

138 

6 

8 

Parsonage of Goban and Kirk of Dalzelle 


mortified thereto 

The Parsonage of Ayr among the Prebenda¬ 
ries are the Kirk of Ayr, Quhilter primo, 
Quhilter secundo, Parsonage of Dalmel- 
lington, Vicarage of Dalmellington, 
o/' Dalrymple, Kirk of Altoway, per Tart 
Roll, 1597. They pertained to the Dean , 
Subdean, Prebenders, and Canons of the 
Chapel Royal 

Parsonage of Ayr amongst the 


Prebendaries 

138 

6 

8 

Do. 

of Renfrew 

55 

0 

8 

Do. 

of Goban 

55 

0 

8 

Do. 

of Carstairs 

20 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Cardross 

34 

7 

4 

Do. 

of Glasgow, secundo 

27 

10 

8 

Do. 

of Moffat 

51 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Erskine 

40 

5 

0 

Do. 

of Barlangwig 

41 

6 

8 

Do. 

of Eglisham 

55 

0 

8 

Do. 

of Killerne 

55 

0 

8 

Do. 

of Douglass 

68 

17 

8 

Do. 

of Cambushlaying 

27 

10 

8 

Do. 

of Tarbolton 

82 

13 

4 

Do. 

of Cumnock 

82 

13 

4 

Do. 

of-Luss 

82 

13 

4 


ii 3 


202 



L. 


d. 

Parsonage of Sanquhar 

51 

13 

4 

Do. of Kirkmulie 

94 

5 

0 

Do. of Durrisdeir 

41 

6 

8 

Do. of Bothwell 

403 

6 

8 


The Common Kirks of Glasgow are, 1st . 
Glencairne ; 2d. Lillie slieff ; 3 d. Wei - 
stone; 4sth. Commorell; 5th. Dalyell 
Provostry of Hamilton 
Vicarage of Mearns 
The Common Kirks of Glas¬ 
gow 

Parsonage of Stainhouse 


20 13 
20 13 


138 6.8 


27 10 8 

The Parsonage of Straihaben among the 
Prebendaries are Overtown, Strathaben, 
' Newtown, Netherfield, Cruickburn 
Parsonage of Strathaben 109 27 8 

Vicarage of Eitvvood - 20 13 4 

Do. of Kilburthen - 20 13 4 

Parsonage of Glasfurd 34 7 4 

Vicarage of Kilmacolm 27 10 8 


The Parsonage of Stainhouse among the 
Prebendaries are Stainhouse, Hessildane, 
Killymoore. 

These all Prebenders of Bothwell 
Vicarage of Innerkys - 20 13 4 

Do. of Erskine - 20 13 4 

Do. of Calder and Monk- 

land - 27 10 8 

Do. of KillelJand - 27 10 8 

Parsonage of Crauftird John 50 0 O 




L. 

S . 

irsonage ol Culter 

41 

6 

Do. 

of Bigger 

35 

5 

Do. 

of Hartside 

. 35 

5 

Do. 

of Lamington 

- 35 

5 

Do. 

of Carmichell 

20 

13 

Do. 

of Liberton 

51 

13 

Do. 

of Dolphington 

20 

13 

Do. 

of Cobintoun 

20 

13 

Do. 

of Thankertoun 

20 

13 

Do. 

of Colquhoun 

55 

0 


Provostry of Dumbarton 165 7 

Vicarage of Kilpatrick - 47 10 


Parsonage of Inchalz - 47 10 

Do. of Monybrock 27 10 

Vicarage of Dairy - 35 6 


Do. 

of Kilmavers 

20 13 

Do. 

of Kilbirnie 

20 13 

Do. 

of Ogawston 

20 13 

Do. 

of Dreghorne 

20 13 

Do. 

of Dundonald 

27 10 

Do. 

of Stewarton 

2a 13 

Do. 

of Maylvill 

27 10 

Do. 

of Dunlop 

27 10 

Provostry of Lincluden 

206 13 

Vicarage of Kirkbean 

51 13 

Parsonage of Southwark 

27 10 

Do. 

of Kirkvnabean 

41 6 

Vicarage of Urr 

27 10 

Parsonage of Kirkpatrick Iron- 


gray 

- 

27 10 


d: 

o 

4 

4 

4 

4 

4 

4 

4 

4 

0 

O 

o 

0 

8 

o 

4 

4 

4 

4 

8 

4 

8 

8 

4 

4 

8 

8 

8 

8 


104 



L. 

S . 

d. 

Vicarage of Dumfries 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Penpont 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Dunscore 

20 

10 

4 

Do. of Kirkbryde 

34 

7 

0 

Do. of Kirkconnell 

27 

10 

8 

Parsonage of Tin wait 

34 

7 

4 

Do. of Kirkmichael 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Garwald 

20 

13 

4 

Priory of Can nobie 

20 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Kirkpatrick Juxta 

20 

13 

4 

Do. of Applegirth 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Lochmaben 

27 

10 

8 

Do. 1 of Ruthwell 

20 

13 

4 

Bishoprick of Galloway 

344 

8 

8 

Priory of Whithorn e 1033 

6 

8 

Abbay of Tungland 

206 

13 

4 

Do. of Dundrennan 

516 

13 

4 

Do. of Glenlute 

344 

8- 

8 

Do. of Saulsett 

138 

6 

8 

Pryorie of St. Mary’s Isle 

103 

6 

8 

The Archdeanry the same with the Par soil- 
age Penninghame 

Archdeanry of Galloway 

82 

13 

4 

Parsonage of Kirkenner 

138 

6 

8 

Parsonage of Wigtoun 

68 

17 

8 

Do. of Dairy 

55 

0 

8 

Do. of Partoun 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Kirk tryst 

27 

10 

8 

Do. of Kellis 

32 

0 

0 


105 



L. 

s. 

d. 

Parsonage of Balmaclanothen 

27 

10 

8 

Bishoprick of the Isles 

206 

13 

4 

Vicarage of Monygooft 

25 

16 

8 

Do. of 

20 

13 

4 

Abbey of Icolmkill 

344 

8 

8 

Bishoprick of Argyle 

172 

4 

6 

Pryorie of Arclattan 

103 

6 

8 

Archdeanry of Argyle 

27 

10 

8 

Parsonage of Glusistar 

27 

10 

8 


Summa or Total of the said Benefices * 
for each term extends to 50,1641. 5 shil¬ 
lings, Scots. 

The Taxt Roll of the haill free Rurrowes 
of Scotland, contained in the particular Tax 
Roll, made and set down by the Provost 
and Baillies of Edinburgh, and subscribed 
by Mr. Alex. Guthrie, their common Clerk. 

- 

Note. —The foregoing Prelacies, Lord- 
ships, &c. besides Money rent, had various 
other articles of revenue, viz. from meal 
and bear, &c.: and it is here worthy of re¬ 
mark, that at a very early period, 1576, 

wheat 



id 6 


'wheat had been cultivated in Buchan ; for, 
in glancing at the revenue of the Abbacy 
of Deer, situated in the Parish of Old 
Deer, and District of Buchan, belonging to 
James Ferguson, Esq. of Pitfour, M. P. 
there is the following statement :■—“ Third 
of the Abbacy of Deer, 4 bolls, 2 pts. of a 
boll of wheat; 4 ch. 14 bolls, bear 5 21 ch. 
3 bs. 2 ps. peck, .meal.” From hence it 
is to be supposed that, in addition to the 
Money rental of the said Abbacy, there 
was also payable 12 bolls, 6 parts of a boll, 
wheat; 14 ch. 10 bolls, bear; 53 ch. 9 
bolls, 6 pecks, 1 ^- peck, meal. 

They extend for each term to 1(3,6661. 
4s. 6d.—Edinburgh part is 479ll. 13s. 4d. 


CHAPTER 


TAXED ROLL of the SHERIFFDOMS and LORDSHIPS. 


CHAPTER X 


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CHAPTER XT. 


Of the Red, or Doomsday Boole , being the Register 
of the Survey of the Kingdom, 

The great Survey of all the Lands, 
Castles, &c. in England, was made by the 
Conqueror, in the 18th or 20th year of his 
reign, and two authentic copies drawn up, 
one of which was lodged in the Archives at 
Westminster, the other in Winchester Ca¬ 
thedral, as Thomas Rudborne informs us. 
(Angl. Sacra, t. i. p. 259.) This Register 
of Survey, called by the English the Red 
Book , or, more frequently, Doms day Book , 
often quotes the usages and survey of Ed¬ 
ward the Confessor, as appears from the cu¬ 
rious and interesting extract of English 
Saxon Customs, copied from this MS. by 
Mr. Gale.—(Angl. Script. 15. t. ii. p. 759.) 

I 2 Alfred 


112 


Alfred first made a general Survey, but this 
only comprised Shires, Hundreds, and 
Tenths, or Tythings. The Survey of the 
Confessor, perhaps, was of this nature. That 
of the Conqueror was made with the utmost 
rigour, and such, minute accuracy, that there 
was not a hyde of land, (about 64 acres,) 
the yearly revenue or rent whereof, and the 
name of the Proprietor, which were not en- 
registered, with the meadows, arable land, 
forests, rivers, number of cattle, and of the 
inhabitants in towns and villages, &c. 


CHAPTEr 



CHAPTER XII. 


Of the Ancient Court , or 'Parliament of the Na¬ 
tion — its Origin and History . 

The TVittena Gemot y or Mycel Synod, 
that is, Council of the Wites, or Great 
Council, was the Assembly of the States of 
the nation. How far its authority extend¬ 
ed, or of what persons it was composed, is 
much controverted. Its name, derived 
from the Wiles , seems only to imply the 
great Thanes, or Lords, and Governors; 
yet Ina, Egbert, Alfred, Edgar, Canute, &c. 
in their charters and laws, mention the per¬ 
mission, approbation, and consent of the 
people ; which some take for an argument 
in favour of the Commons having had a 
share in the Great Assembly of the nation. 
The Conqueror certainly had no Council 
i 3 by 


114 


by which he could be controulled in any 
thing. Nevertheless, the ancient statutes 
concerning the holding the Parliament of 
England, ascribed in the preface to Edward 
the Confessor, are there said to have been 
corrected and approved by the Conqueror. 
In them is regulated the manner of assem¬ 
bling this Court, in 25 Articles; but it 
seems not to be doubted but several of 
them were added in posterior reigns after the 
Conqueror. They were extant in D* Achery’s 
Spicilegium, t.xii. p.557. Though the name 
of Parllament was new, and French, this 
Court was looked upon, in the wars of the 
Barons, as a restoration of the Great Coun¬ 
cil of the nation under the English Saxons, 
though, doubtless, the form was considerably 
altered. And the little mention that is 
made of this Wittena Gemot in the Saxon 
Chronicle seems to indicate that its transac¬ 
tions were not then so famous. As to the 
other chief English Saxon Courts, the 
Shire Gemot, or Folk-Mote, was held 

twice 


115 


twice a year, to determine the causes of 
the county. In it the Bishop and the 
Ealderman presided ; in the absence of the 
former, an Ecclesiastical Deputy, of the 
latter, the high Sheriff held their places.— 
The Conqueror excused the Bishops from 
assisting at this Court; but they had their 
own Court for Ecclesiastical matters.— 
Every Thane of the first Class had a Court, 
in which he determined matters relating to 
his vassals. This was the original of the 
Court Baron , under the Normans, though 
causes, which were formerly tried here 
for near three hundred years, are reserved 
to the King’s Courts; and those which 
were judged by the Ealderman, or Earl, 
or his Sheriff, &c. are long since deter¬ 
mined by itinerant royal Judges. The 
King presided in his own Courts, and, in 
his absence, the Chancellor : to this lay 
appeals from all Shire Gemots, he. In 
this Court Alfred condemned to death 44 
Judges of inferior Courts, convicted of ne¬ 
glect 


116 


gleet in the administration of justice. 
Though mild in his laws, he was rigid in 
their execution. To this Council of the 
King succeeded the Court of King’s Bench 
and Common Pleas.—(See Lambard on the 
Lares of the ancient English , Selden, Spel- 
man, Somner, Drake, and particularly 
Squires. 


CHAPTEU 


CHAPTER XIII. 


Of the Right to the Crown of England in the Line 
of Edward the Confessor . 

Edward, the Son of Edmund Ironside, 
Nephew to St. Edward the Confessor, was 
the next heir of the Saxon line; whence 
some modern English condemn the acces¬ 
sion of the Confessor, who certainly could 
derive no right from the unjust Danish 
Conquest, as Bedford, or whoever was the 
author of the Book entitled Hereditary 
Right , pretends. But it is evident from Mr. 
Earberry, (Occasional Historian , p. 4.J that 
during the reign of the English Saxons, 
when the next heir was esteemed by the 
States unfit, in dangerous or difficult times, 
the King’s Thanes advanced another Son 
or Brother of the deceased King, so as 


never 


118 


3]ever to take one that was not of his fa¬ 
mily. Often, if the heir was a Minor, an 
Uncle was made King; and, upon the 
Uncle’s death, though he left issue, the 
Crown reverted to the former heir, or his 
children, as the very inspection of a table 
of their succession shews. (See Mr. 
Squire’s Diss. on the English Saxon Go - 
•vernnient, an. 1753.) Cerdic, founder of the 
kingdom of the West Saxons, in 495, from 
whom the Confessor descended, was the 
tenth from Woden, according to the 
Saxon Chronicle, published by Bishop Gib¬ 
son, from an original copy which formerly 
belonged to the Abbey of Peterborough, 
was given by Archbishop Laud to the Bod¬ 
leian Library at Oxford, and is more cor¬ 
rect than the copies in the Cotton Library, 
and at Cambridge, made use of by Wheloc. 
This most valuable Chronicle derives also 
the pedigrees of Hengist and his successors 
in Kent, and of the Kings of Mercia and 
Northumberland, from Woden, whom Bede 

calls 


119 


calls the father of the Royal Saxon lineage 
in England, or of the chief Kings in the 
Heptarchy : he must have preceded the 
reign of Dioclesian. Some take him to 
have been the great God of this name ho¬ 
noured by the Saxons; others a mighty 
King, who bore the name of that false 
God. That the regal succession in the hep¬ 
tarchy was hereditary, and, when inter¬ 
rupted, again restored, is manifest from the 
above Chronicle. The Norman carried so 
high his claim of Conquest, as to set him¬ 
self above all established laws and rights, 
and to exclude his Son Robert from the 
crown ; but the succession was deemed 
hereditary, after Stephen at least. The 
unanimous sense and approbation of the 
whole nation, and of all Foreign States, in 
the succession of St. Edward, demonstrates 
the legality of the proceedings by which he 
was called to the crown ; which no one, 
either at home or abroad, ever thought of 
calling in question—so clear was the law or 

custom 


120 


custom in that case. The posture of af¬ 
fairs then required that the throne should 
be immediately filled before a Dane should 
step into it. Edward Atheling was absent 
at a great distance, and unequal to the dif¬ 
ficulties of the State ; nor could matters 
be brought to bear that his arrival could 
be waited for. St. Edward afterwards sent 
for him with his whole family, in 3054, and 
treated him as his heir; and, after that 
Prince’s death, behaved towards his Son 
Edgar in the same manner, who was also 
styled by him Atheling, or Adeling. The 
Greek title Clyto , or Illustrious, given to 
the Prince Royal by our ancestors, was by 
them changed into the Saxon word Athe¬ 
ling, from Adel, Noble ; the termination, 
big, signified a person’s descent, as Malmes¬ 
bury takes notice—(1. i. de Reg. c. 3.) 
Thus Edgar ing was the Son of Edgar; and, 
in France, Meroviwg and Carlo vi /2 Sons 
of Meroveus and Charles. 


The 


121 


The spelling of Edward’s name was al¬ 
tered upon his accession to the throne. 
Till that time it is constantly spelled, in 
the Saxon Chronicle, Eadward, even two 
years before, but, in 1042, Edward, which 
is observable also in his coins; though Ead- 
mund and Eadward are found in later 
MSS. This is one of the arguments by 
which Bishop Gibson (Pref.) shews this 
Chronicle to have been one of the public 
Registers, which were written by persons 
deputed to record all transactions of the 
times, and preserved in the royal Monaste¬ 
ries, as the Scoti Chronicon informs us. 
The Saxon Chronicle ends in 1154.—(On 
it, see Nicolson’s English Historical Li¬ 
brary, p. 114.) 


K 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XIV. 


Of Dead Bodies—their treatment—and showing 
that they should not he too hastily buried—and 
the danger of doing so . 


The good Camillus, an officer in the Ve¬ 
netian service, celebrated for his sanctity, 
among other abuses and evils which he pre¬ 
vented by his attention to every circum¬ 
stance which related to dead bodies, was 
that of guarding against their being too 
soon buried after death ; as his attendance 
in hospitals made him discover that many are 
buried alive, of which Cicatello relates seve¬ 
ral instances —{See Cicat. 1. 2. c. i. p. 446)— 
particularly of one buried in a vault, who 
was found walking about in it when the 
next corpse was brought to be there inter¬ 
red. He never allowed their face to be 

covered 


123 


covered so soon as is usually done, by 
which means those who are not dead are 
apt to be stifled. This precaution is most 
necessary in cases of drowning, apoplexies, 
and those accidents and distempers which 
arise from mere obstructions, or some sud¬ 
den revolution of humours. This observa¬ 
tion of Camillus has been since confirmed 
by many instances of persons, who were 
found to have been buried alive, or to have 
recovered long after they had appeared to 
have been dead. Accounts of several such 
examples are found in many modern medi¬ 
cal and philosophical memoirs of literature, 
which have appeared during the last cen¬ 
tury, especially in France and Germany; 
and experience evinces the case to have 
been frequent. Boerhaave, (Not. in Instit. 
Medic.) and some other men, whose names 
stand among the foremost in the list of 
Philosophers, have demonstrated, by many 
undoubted examples, that, where the per¬ 
son is not dead, an entire cessation of 
k 2 breathing. 


124 


breathing, and of the circulation of the 
blood, may happen for some time, by a total 
obstruction in the organical movements of 
the springs and fluids of the whole body, 
which obstruction may sometimes be after¬ 
wards removed, and the vital functions re¬ 
stored. Whence the soul is not presumed 
to leave the body in the act of dying, but 
at the moment in which some organ or 
part of the body, absolutely essential to life, 
i$ irreparably decayed or destroyed. Nor 
can any certain mark be given that a per¬ 
son is dead, till some evident symptom of 
putrefaction commenced appears sensible. 

Duran, and some other eminent Surgeons 
in France, in memorials, addressed, some to 
the French King, others to the public, com¬ 
plain that two customs call for redress; 
first, that of burying multitudes in the 
Churches, by which experience shews that 
the air is often extremely affected; the se¬ 
cond is that of which we speak. To pre¬ 
vent 


125 


vent the danger of this latter, these authors 
insist that no corpse should be allowed to 
be buried, or its face close covered, before 
some certain proofs of putrefaction, for 
which they assign, as one of the first marks, 
if the lower jaw, being stirred, does not re¬ 
store itself, the spring of the muscles being 
lost by putrefaction.—See Dr. Bruhier 
Memoire presente au Roi sur la necessite 
cTnn reglement general au sujet des enter- 
ments et embaumements, in 1745 ; Disserta¬ 
tion sur Vincertitude des signes de la mort, in 
1749 , 2 vols. 12mo. ; and Dr. Louis’ Let¬ 
ters sur la certitude des signes de la mort , 
contre Bruhier, 1752 , l2mo. 

The Romans usually kept the bodies of 
the dead eight days, and practised a cere¬ 
mony of often calling upon them by their 
names, of which certain traces remain in 
many places, from the old ceremonial for 
the burial of Kings and Princes— Servaban- 
tur cadavera ocio diebus , et calid . ablueban- 
k 3 tur, 


126 


tur , et post ultimam conclamationem ablut - 
bantur .—(Servius in Virgilii jEneidon, h 
viii. ver. 215.) The corpse was washed 
whilst warm, and again, after the last call 
addressed to the deceased person, which 
was the close of the ceremony, before the 
corpse was burnt or interred : and to be 
deprived of it was esteemed a great mis¬ 
fortune.— Corpora nondam conclamatajacent , 
Lucan. 1. ii. ver. 22. Jam defletus et con - 
clamatus es, Apuleius, 1. i. Metam. et 1. ii. 
ib. Desine, jam conclamatnm est. Terent. 
Eunuch, ii. iii. ver. 56. and St. Zeno of 
Verona, describing a wife who immoderate¬ 
ly laments her deceased husband, says, Ca» 
daver amplectitur conclamatnm —St. Zeno, 
3. i. trac. 16. p. 126. nov. ed. Vernon. This 
ceremony, trivial in itself, was of impor¬ 
tance to ascertain publicly the death of 
the person. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XV. 



A Dissertation on the existence of Evil Spirits — 
with proofs from' Scripture-—as also the ideas of 
Heathens on that head , and of their taking pos¬ 
session of Human Beings . 

The existence of evil spirits is manifest 
from experience, and from natural argu¬ 
ments, drawn from the operations in demo¬ 
niacs, from some examples among the hea¬ 
thenish oracles, and from various other ef¬ 
fects. Mr. Seed, in his Discourse on the 
nature and being of Evil Spirits, and many 
other Protestant Theologians of note, in¬ 
sist much upon this proof, that many have 
experienced dreams and temptations of 
such an extraordinary nature, and concern¬ 
ing subjects of which before they had no 
knowledge, and of which their imagination 

could 


125 


could not by itself have produced any spe¬ 
cies or images, that the ideas or effects 
must be excited by some external spirit, 
who, by their nature, must be an evil one. 
This argument is not only allowed, but 
strongly urged, by several famous Deists, 
for the belief of evil spirits. But it is from 
the divine revelation that we learn the ori¬ 
gin and qualities of these invisible enemies. 
By this we are informed that the devils fell 
from a state of justice and sanctity, in 
which they were created, by their own ma¬ 
lice and sin ; and that their crime was 
pride, to which, enamoured of their own 
perfection, they consented in thought, and 
which is called the beginning of all sin , 
(Ecclus. x. 15.) The prince of the apos¬ 
tate angels is sometimes called Lucifer. 
Some Theologians and Interpreters have 
thought that he was chief of all the angeli¬ 
cal choirs, and that he was meant under 
the figure of Behemeth, who is called, ac¬ 
cording to the Seventy and Vulgate , the be ¬ 


ginning 


129 


ginning of the ways of God, (Job xl. 14.) 
Dazzled with his own exalted state and 
beauty, he said within himself, I will he 
like to the Most High, (Isaiah, xvi. 12.) 
His heart was puffed up with his beauty , and 
in it he lost his wisdom , (Ezek. xxviii. 17.) 
For, according to several learned Fathers, 
Isaias compares the haughtiness of the 
King of Babylon, and Ezekiel that of the 
King of Tyre, to the pride of Lucifer, 
which they thence took occasion to des¬ 
cribe. The apostate angel was followed in 
his revolt or sin by a great part of the 
heavenly host, who were in a moment 
hurled down from their seats, and con¬ 
demned to hell, (2 Pet. ii. 4. Jude 6.)— 
Whilst some were immediately confined to 
these dungeons, others are left more at 
large till the day of judgment; and, in 
the meantime, their torments seem less 
grievous, (Matt. viii. 29. 31, &c.) See Pe- 
tavius, Tr\ de Angelis . 


These 


130 


These fiends are called the princes of 
darkness, of the air, and of the world, 
(Eph. ii. 1, 2. vi. 12. Mat. xii. 22. Luke ix. 
1.) They differ in their ranks in a kind of 
hierarchy, as some are worse than others, 
(Mat. xii. 24. Ephes. vi. 12. &c.) Their 
Prince is called Belial, that is, the evil one; 
or rather (according to St. Jerom’s inter¬ 
pretation of the word, 3 Kings, xxi. 13.) 
the Rebel; also Satan, or the enemy, and 
Beelzebub, from the chief idol of the Ac-, 
caronites. The rage, malice, and envy of 
the devils against man, their enmity to all 
good, are implacable ; and their natural 
subtlety and strength are exceeding great, 
as appears from the perfection of their 
being, which is purely spiritual, and from 
examples where God suffered them more 
remarkably to exert their power. They 
hurried the swine into the lake, killed the 
seven first husbands of Sara, have slain 
armies in one night, have often disturbed 
nature, and stirred up tempests which struck 
whole provinces with terror, and ravaged 

the 


131 


the whole world. Satan makes his attacks 
upon men by putting on all shapes, some¬ 
times by craft, or by snares and stratagems, 
as the old serpent; sometimes by disguise, 
transforming himself into an angel of light, 
and assuming the air of piety ; sometimes 
by open assaults and violence, as the roar¬ 
ing lion, and noon-day devil. What did he 
not against holy Job ? There is no power 
on earth which can he compared with him , 
(Job, xli. 2. 4.) But he is restrained and con¬ 
fined by God’s command, nor can he 
spread his snares, or tempt men, but by the 
divine permission ; for which he sometimes 
obtains a special leave, as in the cases of 
Job, (chap, i.) and St. Peter, (Luke xxii. 
31, 32.) &c. The devils watch to entice 
men to sin, (1 Pet. v. 8.) We have exam¬ 
ples of this in the temptations of Eve, 
Achab, &c. They are sometimes suffered to 
deceive false prophets and wicked men, (3 
Kings, xxii. 21.) They accuse men before 
the judgment seat of God, (Zach.iii. 1,2. &c.) 

The 


132 


The devils are sometimes permitted by 
God to exert their natural power and 
strength on natural agents, by moving se¬ 
cond causes, in producing distempers in 
human bodies, raising storms, and causing 
other physical evils in the world, as appears 
from such effects being sometimes ascribed 
in the holy scriptures to these wicked spi¬ 
rits.—(See Calmot Disc, sur les Mauvais 
Angel .) Before Satan was bound, or his 
power curbed by the triumph of Christ 
over him, and the spreading of the happy 
light and influence of the Gospel through¬ 
out the world, the empire which the devils 
exercised on earth was much greater than 
since that time. But it is most certain 
that the devils are sometimes permitted by 
God to continue, in some degree, the mis¬ 
chievous influence of their malice against 
men, various ways. With regard to effects 
of magic and possessions of devils, though 
prayer, and the other arms of piety and re¬ 
ligion, are to be always employed against 


our 


133 


our invisible enemies, yet such extraordi¬ 
nary effects are not easily to be supposed; 
superstition, credulity, and imposture, are 
to be guarded against and natural dis¬ 
tempers,* such as certain species of mad¬ 
ness, extraordinary palsies, epilepsies, or 
the like, are not to be construed into effects 
of enchantments or possessions, which are 
not to be presumed upon ridiculous com¬ 
pacts and signs, (such as are mentioned in 
many popular pretended examples related 
by Dalrio, &c.) nor upon vulgar prejudices 
and notions of the manner in which such 
things are done, but must be made apparent 
by circumstances which are preternatural, 
or beyond the ordinary course of nature. 
By clear proofs, it is manifest, that God 
sometimes permits corporeal possessions (in 
which the devil seizes on some of the cor¬ 
poreal organs or senses in a human body) 
and obsessions, (in which he represents cer¬ 
tain images as present to the eyes or ima¬ 
gination, with an invincible obstinacy ;) 

l and 


134 


and that these have been more or less fre¬ 
quent in different times and places. This 
is confirmed by the testimony and expe¬ 
rience of all ages, and of all nations, even 
to the remotest Indies, as John Clerc ob¬ 
serves, (Bibl. Universelle, t. 15 . c. 4 .) 
Such facts both the Old and New Testa¬ 
ment manifestly evince.—(See Laurence 
Clarke, in his Life of Christ, against Wool- 
ston, p. 474 , &c. and the Dissert, on the 
Obsessions and Possessions of Devils , pre¬ 
fixed to the Gospels, in the new Latin and 
Trench Bible, with Dissertations, t. x. p. 
590 .) 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XVI, 


Of the Great Seal of England—its origin when 
first used—with other curious particulars—and 
the Seals of other Nations . 


The learned Dr. Hickes (in Dissert. 
Epist. p. 64) pretends that Edward the Con¬ 
fessor was the first King of England who 
used a Seal in his Charters, such as we find 
in his Charter given to Westminster Abbey, 
kept among the archives of that Church, and 
on one of his Diplomas, shewn in the Monas¬ 
tery of St. Dennis, near Paris. This is the 
origin of the broad Seal in- England. Mont- 
faucon exhibits three or four rough Seals, 
found on some of the Charters of the Mero¬ 
vingian Kings, the oldest of which is one of 
Theodoric I. (Antiq. de la Monarchic Fran- 
coise.) The ancient Kings of Persia and Me- 
l 2 dia 


136 


dia had their Seals, (Dan. vi. 17. xiv. 13. 
16. Esther, iii. 10.) They are also men¬ 
tioned by profane Authors. The Bene¬ 
dictines, in their new French Diploma¬ 
tique, (t. iv. p. 100) present us the heads 
of Seals of all the ancient Kings of France, 
from Childeric, father of Cloves; of the 
German Emperors and Kings, from Char¬ 
lemagne, especially from St. Henry II. 
in the 11th century, in imitation of the 
Emperors of Constantinople ; of the Kings 
of Denmark, Bohemia, Hungary, &c. 
from the 12th century. These authors 
prove, against Hicks, Dugdale, (in his 
Antiq. of Warwickshire,) &c. that Seals 
were used by the Kings of England be¬ 
fore St. Edward, Ethelbert, Edgar, St. 
Dunstan, even Olfa, during the heptarchy. 
St. Edward brought the more frequent use 
of the Itoyal Seal from France ; yet he 
often gave Charters, attested by the sub¬ 
scription of many illustrious witnesses, with 
a cross to each name, without any royal 
Seal, which was the ancient custom, and 

continued 


137 


continued sometimes to be used even after 
the Conquest-. Menage and the editors of 
the new Latin Glossary of Du Cange, (t. 
vi. p. 487) by a gross mistake, attribute to 
the Conqueror the first use of a royal Seal 
in England. He only made it more solemn 
and common. Ingulphus (p. 901)—the an- 
nals of Burton (p. 246) are to be under¬ 
stood, that Seals were not used by par¬ 
ticulars by the Conquest; but they do not 
comprise the Court; hence we learn the 
sense of that common assertion of our his¬ 
torians and lawyers, that St. Edward was 
the first institutor of the Broad Seal. 

The first Kings used for their Seal their 
own image on horseback ; afterwards great 
men used their arms, when these became 
settled and hereditary. About the time of 
Edward the Third , Seals became common 
among all the gentry. Nisbet and Mackenzie 
observe, that they served, in deeds, without 
the subscription of any name, till this was 
l 3 ordered 


IS 8 


ordered in Scotland by James V. in 1540 - P 
and about the same time in England.— 
(See Bigland’s Observations on Parochial 
Registers, p. 81.) 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XVII. 


The Origin of the Title of Sheriff, and Titles of 
Honour amongst the Saxons in England and 
other Countries , comprehending all Titles new 
in use . 

The titles of honour amongst our Saxon 
ancestors were—Etheling, Prince of the 
Blood ; Chancellor; Assistant to the King 
in giving judgments; Alderman, or Eal- 
derman, (not Earlderman, *as Rapin Thoy- 
ras writes this word in his first edition) Go¬ 
vernor or Viceroy. It is derived from the 
word Aid, or Old, like Senator in Latin. 
Provinces, cities, and sometimes wapen¬ 
takes, had their Aldermen to govern them, 
determine law-suits, judge criminals, See. 
This office gave place to the title of Earl, 
which was merely Danish, and introduced 

by 


140 


by Canute. Sheriff; or She-reeve, was the 
Deputy of the Alderman, chosen by him, 
sat Judge in some Courts, and saw sentence 
executed; hence he was called Vice-comes. 
Heartoghan signified, among our Saxon 
ancestors, Generals of Armies, or Dukes. 
Hengist, in the Saxon Chronicle, is 
Heartogh. Such were the Dukes appointed 
by Constantine the Great, to command the 
forces in the different provinces of the Ro¬ 
man Empire. These titles began to be¬ 
come hereditary with the office or command 
annexed, under Pepin and Charlemagne, 
and grew more frequent, by the successors 
of these Princes granting many hereditary 
fiefs to Noblemen, to which they annexed 
titular dignities. Fiefs were an establish¬ 
ment of the Lombards, from whom the Em¬ 
perors of Germany and the Kings of France 
borrowed this custom, and with it the feu¬ 
dal laws, of which no mention is found in 
the Roman code. Titles began frequently 

to 


141 


to become merely honorary about the time 
of Etho I. in Germany. 

Reeve, among the English Saxons, was a 
Steward. The Bishop’s Reeve was the Bish¬ 
op’s Steward for secular affairs, attending in 
his Court. Thanes, i.e. Servants, were officers 
of the Crown whom the King recompensed 
with land, sometimes to descend to their 
posterity, but always to be held of him with 
some obligation of service, homage, or ac¬ 
knowledgement. There were other Lords 
of lands, and vassals, who enjoyed the title 
of Thanes, and were distinguished from the 
King’s Thanes. The Ealdermen and Dukes 
were all King’s Thanes, and all others who 
held lands of the King by Knight’s service 
in chief, and were immediate great tenants 
of the King’s estates. These were the 
greater Thanes, and were succeeded by the 
Barons, which title was brought in by the 
Normans, and is rarely found before the 
Conquest. Mass Thanes were those who 

held 


142 


held lands in fee of the Church. Middle 
Thanes were such as held very small es¬ 
tates of the King, or parcels of lands of the 
King’s greater Thanes. They were called by 
the Normans Vavassors, and their lands Va- 
vassories. They who held lands of these 
were Thanes of the lowest class, and did not 
rank as gentlemen. All Thanes disposed 
of the lands which they held, (and which 
were called.Block land, to their heirs,) but 
with the obligations due to those of whom 
they were held. Ceorle (whence our word 
churl) was a countryman or artisan, who 
was a freeman. These Ceorles, who held 
lands in leases, were called sockmen, and 
their lands sockland, of which they could 
not dispose, being barely tenants. Those 
Ceorles who acquired possession of five 
hides of land, with a large house, court, 
and bell, to call together their servants, 
were raised to the rank of Thanes of the 
lowest class. An hide of land was as much 
as one plough could till. The villians or 

slaves, 


143 


slaves, in the country, who were labourers 
bound to the service of particular persons, 
were all capable of possessing money in 
property, consequently were not strictly 
slaves, in the sense of the Roman law. 

Witan, or Wites, (7. e . wisemen,) were 
the Magistrates and Lawyers. Burgh wit- 
ten signified the Magistrates of cities. 
Some shires (or counties) are mentioned be¬ 
fore King Alfred ; and Asserius speaks of 
Earls (or Counts) of Somerset and Devon¬ 
shire, in the reign of Ethelwolph. But Al¬ 
fred first divided the whole kingdom into 
shires, the shires into tithings, lathes, or 
wapentakes, the tithings into hundreds, 
and the hundreds into tenths. Each divi¬ 
sion had a Court, subordinate to those that 
were superior, the highest in each shire 
being the Shire-Gemot, or Folk-Mote, 
which was held twice a-year, and in which 
the Bishop, or his Deputy, and the Ealder- 
man, or his vice-gerent the Sheriff, presided. 

See 


144 


—See Seldom on the Titles of honour ; Spel* 
man’s Glossary, ed. noviss.; Squires on the 
Government of the English Saxons*, Dr. Wil¬ 
liam Howell, in his learned General History, 
t. v. p. 273, &c. 

Nota. —The titles of Earle and Hersen 
were first given by Ifwar Widfame, King of 
Sweden, to two Ministers of State, in 824; 
on which see many Remarks of Olof Delin, 
in his excellent new history of Sweden, c. 
v. t. i. p, 33 4. 


CHAPTER 




CHAPTER XVIII. 


An interesting Account of the Sicilian Vespers, so 
famous in history . 

Frederic II. Emperor of Germany, having 
died at Naples in December, 1249, after 
a reign of 40 years, left Conrad, his eldest 
Son, the kingdoms of Naples, Jerusa¬ 
lem, and Lombardy; to Henry, his se¬ 
cond Son, Sicily; and to Frederic, his 
third Son, Austria ; to Entius, a natural 
Son, the kingdom of Sardinia; and to 
‘ Manfred, or Manfroy, another natural 
Son, the principality of Tarento. William 
II. Count of Holland, a Prince endowed 
with great virtues, and this Conrad, sur- 
named the fourth, were competitors for the 
empire. The former was drowned in 
Frizeland in 1256, and Richard, Duke of 
Cornwall, Brother to Henry III. King of 
m England, 


146 


England, was chosen in his place. He was 
crowned at Aix la Chapelle; but, thinking 
the expence and difficulties too great, re¬ 
turned to England, and died there in 1271. 
Conrad IV. died at Naples in 1254, after he 
had reigned but four years, leaving a young 
Son Conradin, who was educated by his 
Mother in Suabia. The wicked Prince Man¬ 
fred, who is said by some to have poisoned 
both his Brother, Conrad IV. and his Fa¬ 
ther, Frederic III. usurped the Regency of 
Naples and Sicily for his Nephew Conradin, 
and soon after, pretending he was dead in 
Germany, took the title of King. Pope Ur¬ 
ban IV. alleging that Frederic II. and Con¬ 
rad IV. had, by refusing homage, forfeited 
that kingdom, which was a fief of the holy 
See, and that Manfred was an usurper, 
made a present of it to Charles, Duke of 
Anjou and Provence. That Prince, who 
was a good man, like his Brother, but am¬ 
bitious, through incredible difficulties made 
himself master of all that kingdom on this 

side 


147 


side of the Pharos of Messina, and defeated 
and slew Manfred near Benevento in 1266. 
Also almost all the towns in the island of 
Sicily recognised him by their Deputies ; 
and when Conradin and his Brother came 
out of Germany with an army to challenge 
that kingdom, Charles, after some losses, 
discomfited them, took them prisoners, and 
caused them to be put to death, in 1268. 
Peter, King of Arragon, who had married 
Constantina, Manfred’s daughter, occasion¬ 
ed after wards great revolutions in Sicily. The 
inhabitants, in revenge for the death of 
Conradin, and provoked by severe usage, 
formed a conspiracy, and at the time of 
Evening Song , on Easter-day, in 1281, 
cut the throats of all the Frenchmen in the 
island, which massacre has been since cal¬ 
led the Sicilian Vespers. In 1283, King 
Charles had the affliction to see his Son 
made prisoner by the Admiral of Arragon. 

By 


M 12 


148 


By the death of Conradin, and his Bro¬ 
ther Frederic, Duke of Austria, who were 
both beheaded together at Naples, the 
house of Suabia became extinct. But the 
house of Austria soon succeeded it in 
power; for Rodolph, Count of Hapsburgh, 
after the death of Richard, Duke of Corn¬ 
wall, and a short inter-regnum, was chosen 
Emperor in 1273 ; and being a good, wise, 
and valiant Prince, retrieved the empire, 
which he found plunged in the utmost 
confusion and disorder. Ottocar, King of 
Bohemia, had seized on Austria, Styria, Car- 
nolia, and Carinthia ; but Rodolph, who 
had married Ann, the heiress of Suabia, 
conquered them, and invested his Son Al¬ 
bert with the Duchy of Austria, and Ro¬ 
dolph, another Son, with the County of 
Suat>ia. Albert was afterwards Emperor, 
and 1?is posterity took their title from Aus¬ 
tria, as a more illustrious principality than 
that? of Hapsburgh, 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XIX. 


The Origin of Surgery—with some curious parti¬ 
culars regarding the study of that Science, 


The study and practice of Physic, like 
other sciences, had fallen into the hands of 
the Clergy, as Fleury and Don Rivet ob¬ 
serve. The Council of Rheims, under In¬ 
nocent II. in 1131, forbade Monks to fre¬ 
quent schools of Medicine, or practise it 
out of their own Monastery, on account of 
the law of inclosure; but some Monks still 
pursued it at home, and some among the 
secular Clergy continued to teach and prac¬ 
tise it as before. Peter Lombard, Canon of 
Chartres, (a different person from the Bishop 
of Paris of the same name) was first Physi¬ 
cian to King Lewis the young; and Mau- 
ger, Archdeacon of Evreux, afterward 
m 3 Bishop 


ISO 


Bishop of Winchester, in 1199, was first 
Physician to Richard I. King of England. 
—-(Wharton, Anglia Sacra, t. ii. p. 478.) 
The Council of Lateran, in 1215, forbade 
the Clergy who practised Medicine to per¬ 
form any operations in which steel instru¬ 
ments or fire are applied. 

In the 13th century, Surgery began to be 
a distinct profession from Medicine. Till 
that time this latter was looked upon in the 
schools as a part of Physics, or Natural 
Philosophy ; nor was it made a distinct fa¬ 
culty before the year 1472. Though the 
Belles Leltres were still neglected till the 
Greeks revived the taste of them in the 
West, the study of Medicine began to be 
much cultivated, with other serioussciences, 
in the 11th and 12th centuries: but Anatomy 
and Botany were little known, without 
which Physicians are no better than empi¬ 
rics. Medicine then consisted in reading 
principally Galen and Hippocrates, and in 

observing 


151 


observing nature, the only true method of 
that study which Hippocrates leads his at¬ 
tentive readers to pursue. The most fa¬ 
mous schools for Medicine, set up in the 
12th age, were those of Paris and Montpel¬ 
lier.—(See Du Chesne Scriptores Hist . 
Franc. t. v. p. 323.) That of Padua suc¬ 
ceeded them ; and they were preceded by 
that of Salerno, of all others at that time 
the most celebrated, and much resorted 
to from France, England, &c. as appears 
from the learned John of Salisbury, in his 
Metalogicus, 1. iv. c. 4.—(See Bernier, Hist, 
de la Medicine). The famous medical insti¬ 
tutions of the school of Salerno, collected by 
the Professor Peter, of Milan, chiefly from 
the Arabians and Galen, which had been 
so often reprinted, were compiled in the 
11th age. Robert, Duke of Normandy, 
having consulted the school of Salerno, as 
he passed through Italy, in his return from 
the first Crusade, a copy of this book was 
soon after addressed to him, under the title 

of 


152 


of King of England. It is to be wished 
that the late French edition of this book 
had been enriched with a curious investiga¬ 
tion of each precept; that those of Hippo¬ 
crates had been distinguished from others 
borrowed from the Arabians; and that 
some mistakes had been pointed out, and 
corrected from modern observations, since 
a new patli has been struck out in that 
study by Baglivi and Bellini, and has been 
so laudably pursued by Lommius, Syden¬ 
ham, Boerhaave, Van Swieten, Hoffman, 
&c. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XX. 


An interesting Account of the fatal end of the Ty¬ 
rants among the Roman Emperors . 

Tertullian observes, that it was the glory 
of the Christian religion that the first Em¬ 
peror that drew his sword against it was 
Nero, the sworn enemy of all virtue. This 
tyrant, four years after he had begun, in 
64, to exert his rage against the Christians, 
in his extreme distress attempted to kill 
himself, but, wanting resolution, he pre¬ 
vailed upon another to help him to take 
away his life, and perished under the pub¬ 
lic resentment of the whole empire, and the 
universal detestation of all mankind, for his 
execrable cruelties and abominations. Do- 
mitian persecuted the Church in 95, and 
was murdered by his own servants the year 

following. 


154 


following. Trajan, Adrian, Titus, Antoni¬ 
nus,- and Marcus Aurelius, rather tolerated 
than raised persecutions, and escaped vio¬ 
lent deaths. Severus, after he began in 
202 to oppress the Christians, fell into dis¬ 
asters, and died weary of life, leaving be¬ 
hind him a most profligate Son, who had at¬ 
tempted to take away the life of his Father, 
and afterwards killed his Brother ; and his 
whole family perished miserably. De- 
cius, after a short reign, died in battle. 
Gallus was killed the year after he com¬ 
menced persecutor. Valerian was a cruel 
enemy to the Christians, and died in a mi¬ 
serable captivity in Persia. Aurelian was 
killed in 274. Maximus I. was slain, after 
a reign of three years. Nothing prospered 
with Dioclesian after he began his war 
against the Church : out of cowardice he ab¬ 
dicated the empire, and at length put an end 
to his own life. His colleague, Maximian 
Herculeus, was compelled to hang himself 
in 310. Maximian Galerius, the most 

cruel 


153 , 

cruet author of Dioclesian’s persecution* 
was seized with a grievous and terrible di¬ 
sease 5 for being extremely fat and un¬ 
wieldy, the huge mass of flesh was overrun 
with putrefaction, and swarmed with ver¬ 
min, and the stench that came from him was 
not to be borne even by his own servants, 
as Eusebius relates—(b. viii. c. 16.) Maxen- 
tius was overcome by Constantine, and 
drowned in the Tiber. Maximinus II. after 
being defeated byLicinius, was compelled by 
him to repeal his edicts against the Chris¬ 
tians, and died in 313, in exquisite torments, 
under a distemper not unlike that of Gale- 
rius. For whilst his army was drawn up in 
the field, he was lurking and hiding his 
cowardly head at home; and, flying to 
Tarsus, not knowing where to find a place 
of refuge on land or sea, but scared every 
where with his fears, he was struck with 
a sore distemper over his whole body. 
In the most acute and insufferable anguish, 
he rolled himself upon the ground, and 

pined 


1 36 


pined away by long fasting, so that he 
looked like a withered and dried skeleton. 
At last, he who had put out the eyes of the 
Christians lost his sight, and his eyes started 
out of his head; and yet, still breathing, 
and confessing his sins, he called upon 
death to come and release him, which ad¬ 
vanced slowly, and not till he had acknow¬ 
ledged that he deserved what he suffered, 
for his cruelty, and for the insults which he 
had committed against Jesus Christ, as Eu¬ 
sebius relates; (Hist. 1. ix. c. 19.) who adds, 
that all the Rulers of provinces, who had 
acted under him, and persecuted the Chris¬ 
tians, were put to death, as Picentius, his 
principal favourite; Culcianus, in Egypt; 
Theotecnus, and others. Urbanus, the cruel 
Gove; nor of Palestine, had been convictedof 
many crimes at Caesaria, and condemned to 
a shameful death by Maximinus himself; and 
his successor Firmilianus had met with the 
same fate from the hands of his master, 
whom, by his cruelties, he had studied to 

please. 


157 


please. Licinius, the last of these persecu¬ 
tors, was a worthless and stupid Prince, 
who could not read or write his own name, 
hated all men of learning, and was a foe to 
religion. He, to please Constantine, for 
sometime favoured the Christians, and pre¬ 
tended himself to be ready to become one j 
but at last threw off the mask, and perse¬ 
cuted the Church, when he was conquered 
and put to death by Constantine in 323.— 
See Mr. Jortin, t. 3. Tillemont Hist, de 
Emp. 


N 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXI. 


On the Origin of Writing among the Ancients — 
and the Materials used for that purpose. 

S. Cassian was a Christian schoolmaster, and 
taught children to read and write, at Imo- 
la, a city 27 miles from Ravenna, in Italy. 
A violent persecution being raised against 
the Christians, probably that of Decius 
or Valerian, or, according to some, that 
of Julian, he was taken up, and interro¬ 
gated by the Governor of the Province. 
As he constantly refused to sacrifice to the 
Gods, it was commanded that his own scho¬ 
lars should stab him to death with their iron 
writing pencils, called styles ; for at that 
time it was the custom for scholars to write 
upon wax, laid on a board of boxen wood, 
in which they formed the letters with an 


iron 


3 59 


iron style, or pencil, sharp at one end, but 
blunt and smooth at the other, to erase 
what was to be effaced or corrected. They 
also after wrote on boxen wood itself, as St. 
Ambrose mentions.—As to the above mode 
of writing, see Casaubon in Suet. Echard in 
Symbolis, p. 536, &c. from Cicero, &c. 

Indeed the most ancient manner of writ¬ 
ing was a kind of engraving, whereby the 
letters were formed in tablets of lead, 
wood, wax, or like materials. This was 
done by styles, made of iron, brass, or bone. 
Instead of such tablets, leaves of papyrus, 
a weed which grew on the banks of the 
Nile, as also of the Ganges, were used first 
in Egypt; afterwards parchment, made of 
fine skins of beasts, was invented at Perga- 
mum ; lastly, paper was invented, which is 
made of linen cloth. Books, anciently 
writ only on one side, were done up in 
Bolls, and, when opened or unfolded, filled 
n 2 a whole 


160 


a whole room, as Martial complains; but 
when writ on both sides, on square leaves, 
were reduced to narrow bounds, as the 
same Poet observes.—See Mabillen De Re 
Diplomatica , and Calmet Diss. sur les livres 
des Anciens , et les diverses manieres d’ecrire . 
t. vii. p. 31. &c. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXII. 


Of the Manner of Teaching about the year 1250 — 
and of acquir ing the degree of Master of Arts , 
dfc. 

The manner of teaching about the year 
1250 was not as it is generally at present, 
by dictating lessons which the scholars 
write, but it was according to the practice 
that still obtains in some public schools, as 
in Padua, &c. The master delivered his 
explanation like an harangue ; the scholars 
retained what they could, and often pri¬ 
vately took down notes, to help their me¬ 
mory. Academical degrees were then also 
very different from what they now are, 
being conferred on none but those who 
taught. To be Masters of Arts, a man 
must have studied six years at least, and be 
N 3 21 


162 


21 years old ; and to be qualified for teach¬ 
ing Divinity, he must have studied eight 
years more, and be at least 35 years old. 
The usual way was for one, named Batche¬ 
lor, to explain the Master of the sentences 
for a year, in the school of some Doctor, 
upon whose testimony, after certain rigorous 
public examinations and other formalities, 
the Batchelor was admitted to the degree 
of Licentiate, which gave him the licence 
of a Doctor to teach or hold a school him¬ 
self. Another year, which was likewise 
employed in expounding the Master of the 
sentences , completed the degree of Doctor, 
which the Candidates received from the 
Chancellor of the University, and then 
opened a school in form, with a Batchelor 
to teach under him. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


Some Remarks regarding the famous Cross , said to 
have been seen by Constantine the Great in the 
Air , so much disputed 

Certain modern writers imagine that the 
luminous crosses which appeared in the air 
in the reigns of Constantine and Constan- 
tius, were merely natural Solar Halos ; and 
that under Julian, which appeared in the 
night, a Lunar Halo, or circle of colours, 
usually red, round these celestial bodies.— 
But, in opposition to this hypothesis, we 
must observe, that these natural phenome¬ 
na do not ordinarily appear in the figure of 
a cross, but of a ring, or circle, as both ex¬ 
perience and the natural cause shew. We 
ought also to take notice, that this prodigy 
appeared thrice in the same century, and 

always 


164 


always on extraordinary occasions, in which 
many circumstances rendered a miraculous 
manifestation of the divine power highly 
credible. Moreover, how will these secre¬ 
taries and confidants of the intrigues of na¬ 
ture , as Mr. Warburton styles them, account 
for the inscription —In this Conquer — 
which was formed in bright letters round 
the cross, which appeared in the air to Con¬ 
stantine and his whole army, as that Em¬ 
peror himself affirmed upon oath, and as 
Eusebius assures us from his testimony, and 
that of other eye witnesses—(1. i. De vit. 
Constant, c. 28. Olim. 22.) Fabricius very 
absurdly pretends, that the Greek word may 
signify an emblem, not an inscription. Mr. 
Jortin, after taking much pains on this sub¬ 
ject, is obliged to confess, (vol. iii. p. 6 .) 
that, “ After all, it seems more natural to 
interpret the Greek words of a writing than 
of a picture.” It is an ugly circumstance, 
says this author, and “ I wish we could get 
rid of it.” Those who can explain the scrip¬ 
ture 


165 


ture account of the passage of the Israelites 
through the Red Sea by a natural strong 
wind, and an extraordinary ebbing of the 
waters, can find no knot too hard for them. 
To deny supernatural interposition, they 
can swallow contradictions, and build hy¬ 
potheses far more wonderful than the 
greatest miracles. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


An Explanation of Lammas-day, or the 1st August , 
as understood by the Ancients—and of the Cere¬ 
monies performed on that day . 

The 1st day of August is called by us 
Lammas-day, softened from Loaf mass—a 
mass of thanksgiving for the first fruits of 
the earth, or of the corn. In all ancient 
Saxon books, it is called Hlaf-mass, that is, 
Loaf-mass, as maybe seen in old Saxon MSS. 
Books in the Cottonian and other libraries. 
This name often occurs in the printed 
Saxon Chronicle, and is particularly des¬ 
cribed to be the feast of the first fruits of 
corn, ibid. ad. ann. 921. This etymology 
is clearly demonstrated by the learned Som- 
ner, in his Saxon Glossary, v. Hlaf; and 
by Francis Junius, in his accurate Dictiona - 

rium 


167 


rinm Etymologiciim Anglicanum, published 
by Mr. Edmund Lye, in 1743.—See also 
Ham’s Resolves, &c. It was formerly the 
custom for tenants, who had lands of the 
Cathedral of York, to pay on this day a 
live lamb to that Church : but' Bailey/ 
Johnson, and others, who derive this name 
from that custom, or from a supposed 
offering or tithing of lambs at this time, 
never consulted the Saxon Antiquities, the 
true etymology of the word, or any com¬ 
petent vouchers. 

The solemn blessing of new grapes was 
performed both among the Greeks and 
Latins, in some places on the 1st, in others 
on the 6th day of August, and is ex¬ 
pressly mentioned in ancient liturgical 
Books, as Cardinal Bona, and others, take 
notice.—See Bona de Rebus LiLurgicis , and 
Constantine Porphyrogenetta de Ceremo- 
niis Aulce Bysantmcv , c. lxxviii. p. 217. 
who describes the ceremonies with which 

the 


168 


the Emperor and the Patriarch went be¬ 
fore the vintage, from the Country Palace 
of Hieria to a neighbouring vineyard, 
with a great procession, where, on a 
marble table, the Patriarch blessed a 
basket of grapes, after which the Emperor 
gave a grape to each Patrician, Nobleman, 
and Officer, among his attendants, &c.— 
For the Latins, see the Notes of Don Me¬ 
nard on the Sacramentary of S. Gregory 
the Great j and the Comments of the Je¬ 
suit Azevedo on the Ancient Missal of the 
Lateran Basilic, published by him at Rome 
in 1754. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXV. 


Of Architecture—its progress—with an Account of 
the ancient mode of Building—Aiso an Account 
of some of the finest Buildings in the world . 

In countries where architecture was at a 
low ebb, Churches resembled other build¬ 
ings. S. Sulpicius Severus tells us, “ that, 
in the desarts of Libya, near Cyrene, he 
went with a priest, with whom he lodged, 
in a Church, which was made of small 
rods or twigs, interwoven one with another, 
and not much more stately and ambitious 
than the priest’s house, in which a man 
could hardly stand upright. But the men 
who frequented these Churches were men 
of the golden age, and the purest mo¬ 
rals.—(S. Sulpic. Sev. Dial 1. c. ii. p. 391.) 
Bede informs us, that anciently there was 
not a stone Church in all the land, but the 
o custom 


170 


custom was to build them all of woodj so 
that when Bishop Ninyas built one of stone, 
it was such an unusual thing that the place 
was called from it Candida Casa , Whit- 
hern, or Whit Church.—(Hist. 1. iii. c. 4.) 
The same author mentions (1. iii. c. 25.) 
that Finan, the second Bishop of Lindis- 
farne, built a Church in that Island, fit 
for a Cathedral See, which yet was not of 
stone, but only timber, sawed and covered 
with reed, and so it continued, till Eadbert, 
the seventh Bishop, took away the reed, 
and covered it all over, both roof and sides, 
with sheets of lead. Of the low rough 
manner of building, in use among our an¬ 
cestors, we have an example yet standing 
in part of a Church within half a mile of 
Ongar, in Essex. The walls are only trunks 
of trees, reared upright, of man’s height, 
closed with mortar on the inside, with a 
covering of thatch. Such Churches our 
most illustrious forefathers frequented j 
but, then, their houses were not of a finer 
taste. The 


171 


The Vatican Church, the finished master¬ 
piece of architecture, was begun by the fa¬ 
mous Bramante Lazari, who died in 1514, 
and continued by Raphael Urbin, the 
Prince of painters, and a great architect; 
then by Michael Angelo Buonarota, whose 
name stands first in the list of modern sta¬ 
tuaries and architects, and is one of the 
foremost in that of painters. The designs 
of the great cupola and principal parts of 
this Church were his work, and the edifice 
as it now stands is chiefly his plan. He 
was succeeded in the execution of this 
work by Barozzi, who was followed by 
James de la Porta, and Maderno. The 
Church was finished under Paul V. by Ber¬ 
nini.—For the description both of the old 
and new Church, see Fontana de Basilica Va - 
ticana , 3 vols. in folio, at Rome, in 1694; 
and Ciampini de Tempi. Vatican, &c. 

St. Peter’s Church, from the outside of 
the walls, including the portal, is TOO En¬ 
glish feet long, and 509 broad. St. Paul’s, 
o 2 


in 


in London, 519 feet long, and 250 feet 
broad, according to the dimensions taken 
by the able Mathematician, F. Christopher 
Mair, S. J. 

St. Paul’s Church stands on the Ostian 
road, five miles from the Forum of Rome, 
supported by one hundred and forty pillars 
of white marble, taken out of Antoninus’ 
bath. In a subterraneous vault, under the 
patriarchal altar, lie half the relics of SS. 
Peter and Paul. 

The judicious Felibien remarks, (Entrat. 
sur l’Archit.) that it is incredible what a 
number of Churches St. Louis, King of 
France, built; and that, though they were 
all Gothic, they were costly, and finely 
wrought. Those of the Jacobins and Corde¬ 
liers, in Paris, may serve for example, the 
rest being built much in the same manner. 
The stately Cathedrals of Rheims, 420 feet 
long, and of Paris, 390 feet long, were both 
rebuilt in the age in which he lived. The 


carving. 


173 


carving, and other curious decorations, with 
which every window and least part in these 
buildings were embellished, render them 
very costly; and they are solid and majestic. 
The materials were very good, and the 
mortar extremely well prepared. The 
same is observable of the Churches built in 
England by St. Edward the Confessor, and 
under our first Norman Kings. The true 
taste in regular architecture has followed 
the fate^ of other polite arts, in all ages. 
The Romans learned it of the Greeks 200 
years before Christ, but it began to be ne¬ 
glected and depraved among them in the 
reign of Gallien, as appears by his trium¬ 
phal arch in Rome. It was sometimes re¬ 
trieved by great men, especially in the 
reign of Justinian, who endeavoured to vie 
with Augustus in the number and munifi¬ 
cence of the edifices with which he adorned 
the empire. After the inundation of bar¬ 
barians, except in the reigns of Theodoric, 
and his daughter Amalasunta, in Italy, true 
o 3 archi- 


174 


architecture gave way in the West to the 
Gothic, in which no certain rules, propor¬ 
tions, or measures, were observed. Yet in 
ages wherein encouragement was given, it 
is not to be imagined with what wonderful 
success it was executed, merely by the dint 
of genius in masons or architects. This 
we observe in the 11th, 12th, and 13th 
centuries. But the ancient, regular, light, 
convenient, and beautiful manner of build¬ 
ing, which effects its purposes with less space 
and materials, forms bold arches, and ob¬ 
serves the rules of justness and proportion 
in all parts, was revived with other sciences, 
Buschetto, a Greek, restored it in the lltli 
age, in raising the wonderful Cathedral of 
Pisa, and left scholars behind him. In the 
13th century, Nicholas of Pisa built the 
Dominican’s Convent at Bologna, an edi¬ 
fice so much admired, and several edifices 
at Pisa. His son, John of Pisa, erected 
the Cathedral of Sienna, the most finished 
Gothic building in the world, surpassing in 

beauty 


175 


beauty the rich and vast Gothic Cathedral 
of Milan ; but its builders understood per¬ 
fectly true regular architecture. From 
that time, excellent artists, by studying the 
best models of ancient architecture still 
standing in Italy, by reading its rules, laid 
down by Vitruvius, in the reign of Augus¬ 
tus, and by conversing with Cardinal Bes- 
sarion, and other learned Greeks, have re¬ 
stored, principally in Italy, the true taste 
of regular architecture ; though we still 
admire the sumptuous and majestic Gothic 
piles that were raised in the 11th, 12th, 
and 13th ages, at the time of the first revi¬ 
val of sciences : and we loathe, amidst our 
improvements, many disgustful sights, pub¬ 
lic monuments of the proprietors’ want of 
delicacy and judgment, no less than Clo- 
dius’s mad vast piles of stone, insance moles , 
with which he was reproached by Cicero.— 
See Basari, and Hist. Liter, t. ix. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


Of the Mariner's Compass — when discovered—and 
by whom . 


The Mariner’s Compass is thought to 
have been made use of by the Christians in 
the crusade in 1248, in which St* Louis, 
King of France, was engaged. It is ex¬ 
pressly mentioned and described by Cardi¬ 
nal James of Vitri, in 1220, (his Orient. 1. i. 
c. 89) and by Goyot of Provence, in 1200, 
under the name of the Magnetic Needle. 
The French pretend, from the flower de luce 
marked upon it, that it was their invention 
—(see Hist . Liter air e de France , t. ix. p. 
199.) This symbol might be added, and 
its use rendered general by the French in 
these crusades, though it was discovered a 
little before ; not by John Goias of Melfi, 


m 


177 


in the 14th age, (as some have mistaken,) 
but by Flavius Gioias of Malfi, in 1013, as is 
proved by others.—(See Musantius Tab. 
Chronol. sme. 12.) This Amalfi, or Malfi, 
is an Archiepiscopal city, on the sea coast, 
16 miles from Salerno. Echard and many 
others, by mistake, confound it with Melfi, 
a town situate between Naples and Taren- 
to, 90 miles from each.—See Martiniere, 
Musantius, &c. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


Of the lawfulness of Dancing — as also the idea the 
Heathens had of Dancing — with excellent He¬ 
rn arks thereon. 

The ancient fathers have at all times 
taken occasion to shew the dangerous con¬ 
sequences of a passion for dancing, and the 
depravity from which it often takes its 
rise. But to condemn dancing, in persons 
who live in the world, entirely, would be 
an excess of severity in morals; nor is 
some degree of that corporeal exercise des¬ 
titute of advantage, in young persons of 
birth. As to ground, the heart in senti¬ 
ments of religion and virtue, and to culti¬ 
vate and adorn the mind with suitable 
studies and science, is the first part of edu¬ 
cation 5 so it is a secondary care, that the 


179 


body be formed by exercises, both such as 
promote health and strength, and such as 
contribute to give an easy graceful mien 
and carriage, an upright and straight atti¬ 
tude, a firm and stedfast walk, and a gen¬ 
teelness and politeness in behaviour. This 
is a part of the science of the world, and 
awkwardness in the attitude of the body, or 
clownishness in making our addresses to 
others, or in appearing in company, is a 
mark of want of education, and a neglect 
which renders a gentleman contemptible, 
and unfit for acting his part with becoming 
dignity in the commerce of human life. 

On this account the most severe mor¬ 
alists allow children to be taught, not only 
a graceful manner of making a bow, and of 
addressing persons of all ranks, but also 
some single plain dances, such as are most 
proper to correct all rustic unnatural con- 
torsions, to form the shape and attitude of 
the body, and to give an easy, natural, and 

graceful 


graceful carriage. Brutes attain their end 
by instinct, but man by reason ; and the 
faculties of his mind stand in need of dili¬ 
gent culture to arrive at the perfection of 
nature, for which he undoubtedly was de¬ 
signed by his author, who created him ca¬ 
pable thereof. Also his body, for the sake 
not only of health and strength, but also of 
decency and gracefulness, must be fashion¬ 
ed by suitable exercise, as experience 
makes evident, and as it is easy to demon¬ 
strate from the general laws of mechanics 
and physics, applied to the human frame. 
So far as dancing is serviceable to some of 
these purposes, children are usefully taught 
such an exercise. 

But, on the other side, its abuses and 
dangers must be cautiously guarded against, 
as it is sometimes made an instrument to 
vice, and an incentive of the most dange¬ 
rous of all passions. Such dances as, by a 
base licentiousness of morals, are often to¬ 
lerated 


18 l 


lerated on the stage, and in promiscuous 
assemblies, ought absolutely to be banished 
out of every commonwealth which has the 
least regard to virtue and morals, much 
more out of Christian societies. Such are 
here meant, in which several gestures shock 
modesty, tend to excite the passions, and 
are more apt to give a soft dissolute beha¬ 
viour than a grave and truly genteel easy 
carriage. Secondly, a passion or fondness 
for dancing is generally a fatal symptom, 
and a dangerous snare, as all agree who 
have laid down precepts of virtue. To ex¬ 
tenuate the most venerable authority of the 
fathers on this point, many affect to treat 
them as persons unacquainted with the 
world, and to call their morality, which is 
no other than that of the Church, too se¬ 
vere. But the testimonies of penitent 
courtiers, or of heathen statesmen and phi¬ 
losophers, may, perhaps, have some weight 
with such persons. An instance or two 
will suffice.—Roger de Robutin, Count of 
p Bussi, 


180 


graceful carriage. Brutes attain their end 
by instinct, but man by reason ; and the 
faculties of his mind stand in need of dili¬ 
gent culture to arrive at the perfection of 
nature, for which he undoubtedly was de¬ 
signed by his author, who created him ca¬ 
pable thereof. Also his body, for the sake 
not only of health and strength, but also of 
decency and gracefulness, must be fashion¬ 
ed by suitable exercise, as experience 
makes evident, and as it is easy to demon¬ 
strate from the general laws of mechanics 
and physics, applied to the human frame. 
So far as dancing is serviceable to some of 
these purposes, children are usefully taught 
such an exercise. 

But, on the other side, its abuses and 
dangers must be cautiously guarded against, 
as it is sometimes made an instrument to 
vice, and an incentive of the most dange¬ 
rous of all passions. Such dances as, by a 
base licentiousness of morals, are often to¬ 
lerated 


181 


Ierated on the stage, and in promiscuous 
assemblies, ought absolutely to be banished 
out of every commonwealth which has the 
least regard to virtue and morals, much 
more out of Christian societies. Such are 
here meant, in which several gestures shock 
modesty, tend to excite the passions, and 
are more apt to give a soft dissolute beha¬ 
viour than a grave and truly genteel easy 
carriage. Secondly, a passion or fondness 
for dancing is generally a fatal symptom, 
and a dangerous snare, as all agree who 
have laid down precepts of virtue. To ex¬ 
tenuate the most venerable authority of the 
fathers on this point, many affect to treat 
them as persons unacquainted with the 
world, and to call their morality, which is 
no other than that of the Church, too se¬ 
vere. But the testimonies of penitent 
courtiers, or of heathen statesmen and phi¬ 
losophers, may, perhaps, have some weight 
with such persons. An instance or two 
will suffice.—Roger de Robutin, Count of 
p Bussi, 


182 


Bussi, who lived many years with dignity 
and applause in the French Court, and who 
is well known, both by several loose pro¬ 
ductions of wit in his youth, and by his 
edifying repentance many years before his 
death—this great man, in his book On the 
Use of Adversity , addressed to his children, 
cautions them in the strongest manner 
against a love of dancing; assuring them, 
from his own experience, that this diver¬ 
sion is dangerous to many people. This 
pathetic admonition he concludes as fol¬ 
lows :—“ A Ball is generally a post too hot 
even for an anchoret. If it may be done 
by aged persons without danger, it would 
be, in them, ridiculous; and to persons that 
are young, let custom say what it will, it is 
dangerous. In a word, I aver, that a pro¬ 
miscuous Ball is no place for a Christian/* 

The ancient heathens, however debauch¬ 
ed in their morals, looked upon a passion 
for dancing as the school and mark of most 

dan- 


dangerous passions. This appears from 
Sallust, a nobleman, and friend of Julius 
Caesar, who was himself borne away by the 
torrent of the time in which he lived, and 
plunged into the common corruption ; but 
who professes, in his excellent histories, 
that he abominated the vices he saw prac¬ 
tised, though he wanted strength to bear up 
against the tide. Among many judicious 
reflections, this author says of Sempronia, 
a Roman lady, that she danced too well for 
an honest woman— Psallere'et saltare ele- 
gantius quam necesse est i^robcc .—(De bello 
Catilin.)—which words one of our histo¬ 
rians has applied to a certain famous Eng¬ 
lish Queen. Ambrose expresses only the 
general sentiments of the Romans, or ra¬ 
ther of mankind, when he says, that scarce 
any thing can be said more severe of a lady 
than to call her a dancer. This maxim is 
founded in experience, and in the very na¬ 
ture of things. Plutarch takes notice, that 
the first rape upon the famous Helena, 
p 2 when 


1S4 


when she was carried off by Theseus, in 
Thrace, was occasioned by her dancing, 
with other maidens, round the altar of 
Diana, at Sparta. The dancing of Salome, 
at the feast of Herod, produced the martyr- 
dom of the Baptist, and a complication of 
other crimes. 



CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 



Of the Orders of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy , as 
understood in the Church—with their different 
powers . 

The orders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy 
are distinguished thus—Patriarchs, Pri¬ 
mates, Archbishops, and Bishops. Arch¬ 
bishops, or Metropolitans, whatever some 
may say to the contrary, were established 
by the Apostles, to direct all public and 
common affairs of the several Churches of 
large provinces. Thus Titus had the su¬ 
perintendency of all the Churches in Crete, 
as Eusebius Hist. Horn, and Chrysostom (1. 
iii. c. 4. i. in Tit.) observes ; and the latter 
takes notice, that St. Paul entrusted Timo¬ 
thy with the care of superintending all the 
Churches of Asia Minor.—(See Chrysost. 

p 3 Horn, 


186 


Horn. 15. ini Tim.) Metropolitans anciently 
exercised, especially in some places, a very 
extensive jurisdiction over their suffragans ; 
but this is long since much limited by the 
Canons. They have an immediate jurisdic¬ 
tion over their suffragans in some few points, 
but the greater causes of Bishops are only to 
be discussed in provincial Synods, or by the 
Pope. Nor have Archbishops any jurisdic¬ 
tion over the subjects of their suffragans, 
(whose causes, nevertheless, are judged by 
their Courts, when carried to them by re¬ 
gular appeals), nor can Archbishops per¬ 
form the visitation of the dioceses of their 
suffragans, unless the cause be first known 
and proved in a provincial Synod.—(See 
Cone. Trid. Sess. de Reform, xxiv. c. 3.) 

The jurisdiction of Primates is much li¬ 
mited by Canons and particular usages ; it 
is extended over several Metropolitans. 
Many Primates are only titular. In France, 
the Archbishops of Arles, Bourdeaux, 

Bourges, 


187 


Bourges, Sens, Rheims, and Rouen, take 
the title of Primates, because some of their 
predecessors enjoyed that prerogative; but 
only the Archbishop of Lyons exercises the 
jurisdiction of Primate in all France. 

The jurisdiction of all Patriarchs is not 
the same ; to them is reserved, in most 
places, the confirmation of new Bishops, 
with several other such points. The great 
Patriarchs in the East are the Bishops of 
Constantinople, and of the Apostolical Sees 
of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. 
There is also a Patriarch of Ethiopia, that 
is, Abyssinia. The Bishop of Rome is not 
only, by divine right, head of the whole 
Church, but also, in particular, Patriarch of 
the West.—See Marca (De Concord. Sa¬ 
cred. et Imperii, 1. i. c. 2. &c.; Morinus, &c. 
c. i. Exerc. 1.; Themassin de Benefic . c. 3, 
7, 8. ; Leo AUatius de Concord Utriusque 
EccL 1.. i. c. 25.) Certain lesser Patri¬ 
archs have been established in the West ; 


some 


some barely titular. The Archbishop of 
Lisbon is Patriarch of the Portuguese 
Indies. During the schism in Istria, in 
the 6th century, the patriarchate of Aqui- 
leia was set up.—See Baronius, ad an. 570. 
n. 10. and 630. n. 18. 

The great city of Aquileia, which had 
been sometimes honoured by the residence 
of Augustus, and other Emperors, having 
been destroyed by Attila, the inhabitants, 
with their Patriarch, sometime after retired 
to Grado, an island near the continent, 
where they built a town, which was after¬ 
wards embellished by the Gradenigos.— 
Aquileia being rebuilt after the incursions 
of the Lombards, (though it remains to 
this day in the lowest condition), the Pa¬ 
triarch returned to that city. The Church 
of Grado continued to choose its own Pa¬ 
triarchs, till that dignity was transferred to 
Venice. "When the city of Aquileia fell 
under the dominion of the House of Aus¬ 
tria* 


189 


tria, the Patriarch, who was a Venetian, 
chose to reside at Udina, a town subject to 
that Republic. This patriarchate of Aqui- 
leia was suppressed in 1751, by Pope Bene¬ 
dict XIV. and instead thereof two Arch¬ 
bishoprics were erected, that of Goricia for 
the Churches in the Austrian dominions, 
and that of Udina for those in the Vene* 
tian territories. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


Of the prohibition of the Clergy of the Church of 
Rome from Marrying, in which the custom is 
fully handled. 

It is no doubt certain, that though the 
modern Greeks are content to forbid Clergy 
to marry after their ordination, and do not 
exclude from orders those that are married 
before ; yet the ancient discipline of the 
Greek Church was contrary, and the same 
with that of the Latin. Jerom and Epi- 
phanus lived before Socrates: the former 
assures us, (adv. Vigilant, p. 281 ) that the 
Churches of the East, of Egypt, and of 
Rome, took none for Clerks but such as 
were continent, or, if they had wives, lived 
as if they had none. These are the three 
great patriarchates, Rome, Alexandria, and 

Antioch $ 


19i 


Antioch; for this kfst is what he calls the 
East. Epiphanus says, (Hseres 59. Ca- 
thar n. 4.) that “ he who has been mar¬ 
ried once is not admitted to be a Deacon, 
Priest, Bishop, or Sub-deacon, whilst his 
wife is alive, unless he abstain from her j 
especially in those places where the Ca¬ 
nons are exactly observed.” He ob¬ 
jects to himself, that, in certain places, 
some of the Clgery had children. To 
which he answers, “ This is not done ac¬ 
cording to the Canon, but through sloth 
and negligence, or on account of the mul¬ 
titude of the people, and because other 
persons are not found for these functions.” 

This law was evidently in force in Egypt. 
Synesius, when chosen Bishop of Cyrene or 
Ptolemais, hoped to put a bar to his ordina¬ 
tion, by alleging (Ep. x. p. 248) that he 
would not be separated from his wife. He 
was, notwithstanding, ordained Bishop, whe¬ 
ther this law was dispensed with, or whether, 
as is most probable, he afterwards complied 

with 


1 92 


with it. Socrates, indeed, says, that “ cus¬ 
toms varied in this article in some parts: that 
he had seen, in Thessaly, that a Clerk is ex¬ 
communicated if he cohabited with his 
wife, though he had married her before his 
ordination : and that the same custom was 
observed in Macedon and Greece: that in 
the East the rule was generally observed, 
though without the obligation of an express 
law.” Jerom and Epiphanius were cer¬ 
tainly better informed of the Canons and 
discipline of the Church of Syria and Pales¬ 
tine, where they both spent part of their 
lives, than the Constantinopolitan lawyer 
could be; whose relation is rejected by 
some, who think it not reconcileable with 
their testimony, though the fact is not a 
point of such importance as some who mis¬ 
represent the relation seem desirous to 
make it. 

The celibacy of the Clergy is merely an 
ecclesiastical law, though perfectly con¬ 
formable 


193 


formable to the spirit of the Gospel, and, 
doubtless, derived from the Apostles. In 
the modern Greek Church, a married man 
is not compelled to quit his wife before he 
can be admitted to orders, though this was 
the ancient discipline of the Oriental, no 
less than of the Western Churches. How¬ 
ever, this rule, though established by ex¬ 
press Canons in the principal Churchfes, yet 
for sometime (as Socrates was well in¬ 
formed) was, in certain places, a law only 
of customs. Epiphanus tells us, that con¬ 
trary examples were abuses, unless they 
were done by express dispensation, neces¬ 
sary where Ministers were scarce: and vio¬ 
lence was sometimes used by the people in 
the choice of persons the best qualified 
among the converts that were engaged in a 
state of wedlock. Nor could the law of 
celibacy be imposed on married persons 
but by the voluntary consent of the parties. 
Yet such dispensations were not allowed in 
any of the principal Churches. Socrates 
q should 


194 


should have called contrary examples, where 
a dispensation had not been granted, 
abuses, had he been as well informed as 
Epiphanius and Jerom.—See Stilting, Diss ? 
ante Tomum. 3 Sept. § 8 . p. 13, 14, 18. 

In Gaul, Urbicus, Bishop of Clermont, 
in the beginning of the 4th century, who 
had formerly been a Senator, after his ordi¬ 
nation returned to his wife : but to expiate 
this transgression retired to a monastery ; 
and, after doing penance there, returned 
to the government of his Diocese, as Gre¬ 
gory of Tours relates. (His. 1. i. c. 39.) All 
this proves the law to have been observed in 
Gaul. A like example demonstrates the 
same law in the Eastern Churches ; for An¬ 
toninus, Bishop of Ephesus, was accused 
before Chrysostom, among other things, to 
have cohabited with his wife, whom he had 
left at his ordination-as Palladius mentions, 
jn vita Chrysostomi . 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXX; 



'the Custom with regard to Medicine , as practised 
by the Ancients—with the Salaries of Physi¬ 
cians, as allowed by Princes , before the Birth of 
Christ. 


Boerhaave takes notice, that, before 
there were any professed Physicians, it was 
the custom among the ancient Egyptians, 
when any one was sick, to enquire of 
neighbours and passengers if they knew 
any remedies proper for the patient. But 
ever since the study of physic has been a 
profession, it has been both honourable 
and lucrative. The customary yearly sa¬ 
lary which Princes paid their Physicians 
about the time of Christ’s birth, was 250 
sestertia, or above L.2018 sterling. Ster- 
tinius complained, that he had only a sa- 
q 2 lary 


296 


lary of 500 sestertia, or L.4036 9s. 2d. 
sterling, when he had by his private prac¬ 
tice 600 sestertia, or L.4843 15s.—See 
Dr. Arbuthnot’s Book on Coin , and Mr. 
William Smith’s Book of Remarks on the 
same, p. 226, 




CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


Of the celebration of the Feast of St. Michael , as 
ordained by King Ethelred } in England , in the 
year 1014 . 

The festival of St. Michael has been ce¬ 
lebrated in the Church with great solem¬ 
nity ever since the -6th century. It was 
enacted by the Ecclesiastical laws of King 
Ethelred, in England, in the year 1014— 
“ that every Christian who is of age fast 
three days on bread and water and raw 
herbs, before the feast of St. Michael, and 
let every man go to Church barefoot. Let 
every priest, with his people, go in proces¬ 
sion three days, barefoot; and let every 
one’s Commons for three days be prepared, 
without any thing of flesh, as if they them¬ 
selves were to eat it, both in meat and 
q 3 drink* 


193 


drink, and let all this be distributed to the 
poor. Let every servant be excused from 
labour these three days, that he may the 
better perform his fast, or let him work 
what he will for himself. These are the 
three days, Monday, Tuesday, and Wed¬ 
nesday, next before the feast of St. Mi¬ 
chael. If any servant break his fast, let 
him make satisfaction with his hide, (bo¬ 
dily stripes) ; let the poor freemen pay 
thirty pence ; the King’s Thane a hundred 
and thirty shillings—and let the money be 
divided to the poor.”—See Sir Henry Spel- 
man’s Councils , (vol. i. p. 530.) and John¬ 
son’s Collection of the Canons of the Church 
of England , t. i. an. 1014. Michaelmas day 
is mentioned among the great feasts in the 
Saxon Chronicle in the year 1011. In the 
Saxon Menology of the 9th century, pub¬ 
lished by Mr. Wanely (in tingu Aquilen. 
Thes. 1. ii. p. 107) ; and in the English Ca¬ 
lendar, published by Dr. Hicks (in his 
Saxon Grammar, p. 102 ), &c. 


CHAPTF.il 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


Of Trial by Ordeal or Compurgation of the An¬ 
cients—and that by Single Combat . 

Ordeal is derived from the Saxon Or, 
great, and Deal\ judgment—(See John 
Stiernhook, Li. de Jure Sueonum vestusto. 
c. 8. Hicks. Dissertatio Epistol. p. 149. as 
also Spelman, and Du Cange’s Glossaries, 
both in the new editions, &c.) This 
trial was instituted to come at the truth of 
facts not sufficiently proved. First, the 
person accused purged himself by oath, if 
the Judge and accuser admitted him to 
oath, and thought this satisfactory; some¬ 
times this oath was confirmed by twelve 
others, called Compurgators , who swore 
they believed it true. In trials, where the 

oath 


200 


oath was not admitted, the great purga¬ 
tion was ordered. This was of three sorts: 
the 1st, by red hot iron, (which the person 
accused held in his hand, or walked over 
barefoot) ; the 2d, by boiling water, into 
which a person dipped his hand as far as 
the wrists or elbow, to take out a stone; 
the 3d, by cold water, or swimming persons, 
which practice was chiefly used in pretend¬ 
ing to discover wizards and witches; and 
whereas it was originally employed only by 
Judges, it became, in the reigns of James 
Land the two Charles’s, in frequent use 
among the common people.—(See the 
Notes in Hudibras and Hutcheson against 
Witchcraft.) By the MS. history respect¬ 
ing Thomas of Canterbury, written in the 
reign of Henry II. it appears, that the 
King’s Foresters, and other Officers, and 
Country Judges, at that time frequently 
made use of this trial of water in examining 
criminals. On the prayers, fasts, &c. that 
preceded and accompanied the administra¬ 
tion 


201 


tion of ordeal trials, see various forma 
transcribed from Textus Roffens , in the end 
of the Fasciculus Rerum , published by Mr. 
Brown. 

Such trials are allowed by the laws of 
King Edgar c. 24. 62. and his successors, to 
the end of the Conqueror’s reign ; though 
Agobard, the learned Archbishop of Lyons, 
who died in 840, and is honoured at Lyons, 
wrote a book against the Judgments of God , 
wherein he proves such trials to be tempt¬ 
ing God, and contrary to his law, and to 
the precepts of charity.—(See his works, 
published by Baluge, t. i. p. 308.) These 
trials were condemned by the Council of 
Worms. In 329, Alexander II. formerly 
the Conqueror’s own ghostly father, abso¬ 
lutely forbade them by a decree extant.— 
(Causa c. quasst. 5, 6, 7.) They were also 
condemned by Pope Stephen V. Such prac¬ 
tices, for which there is no warrant of a divine 
Institution, or promise of a supernatural in¬ 
ter- 


202 


ierposition, are superstitious, and tempting 
God. They sprang up among the Nor¬ 
thern nations, but were condemned by the 
See of Rome, whenever any notice of them 
reached it. The first legal prohibition of 
ordeal, mentioned by Sir H. Spelman, in 
England, is in a letter from King Henry 
III. to his Justices itinerant in the North, 
in the 3d year of his reign. Some great 
lawyers say it was suppressed by Act of 
Parliament that year—(see Johnson’s Eng¬ 
lish Canons, an. 1065.) A purgation by* 
oath was called in law Legal Purgation ; 
that of ordeal, Vulgar Purgation .—(See 
Genzales in Decutales.) ’ 

Purgations by single combat of the accus¬ 
ers and the accused were instituted by the 
Burgundians, introduced in England by 
the Conqueror, and continued later than 
Henry III. though always condemned by 
Rome.—See Gerdil Tr. des Combats Sin- 
gulim, c. 11. 71. 167. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


Of the different Titles or Dignities among the 
Romans, French, and English , in the time of 
Harold, Earl of Kent, in 1053 . 

Such dignities were at that time titles of 
high office and governments. The Roman 
Emperors had, in their Courts, besides seve¬ 
ral great officers of the state, certain se¬ 
lect Noblemen, who were called the Com¬ 
panions of the Emperor, Comites Impera - 
toris . Suetonius mentions them as early 
as the reign of Tiberius. Constantine the 
Great, having formed the government of 
the Empire upon a new model, gave to 
many officers of his Court the title of 
Count , as the Count of the Privy Purse, of 
the Stable, &e.; also to many Governors 
abroad, as the Count of the East, &c. 

Those 


204 


Those who had the command of the armies 
in a certain country were called Dukes , or 
Generals, as the Duke of Egypt. Pepin, 
Charlemagne, and all the other Carlovin- 
gian Princes, gave these titles, though at 
first very rarely, to some whom they vested 
with a limited and dependent kind of so¬ 
vereignty in some country. Thus Char¬ 
lemagne created a Duke of Bavaria. Feu¬ 
datory l^ws were unknown to the world till 
framed by the Lombards in Italy, the first 
authors of feudatory lands and principali¬ 
ties. Pepin and Charlemagne began to in¬ 
troduce something of them in Germany 
and France, where they were afterwards 
exceedingly multiplied in the reigns of 
weak Princes, and by various accidents. 
The Emperor Otho I. instituted the title of 
Count, Duke, &c. which till then had de¬ 
noted high posts of command and jurisdic¬ 
tion, to be frequently borne merely as 
badges of honour, and to be hereditary in 
illustrious families $ which example was 

immediately 


205 


immediately copied in France, and other 
kingdoms. 

In England, the Saxon title and office of 
Earldom of a County was changed, in the 
9th century, into the Danish title of Earl; 
which office was of its own nature merely 
civil. The military Governor or General 
of the army was called by the Saxons 
Heartogh ; which title is given to Hengist, 
&c. in the Saxon Chronicle, *and was after¬ 
wards exchanged for that of Duke. On 
these Earls or Viceroys sometimes a kind 
of limited sovereignty was conferred. Such 
was bestowed by Alfred on his son-in-law 
Ethelred—Ealderman, or Earl of Mercia, 
as William of Malmesbury testifies. A ho¬ 
mage being reserved to the King, these pro¬ 
vinces were still regarded as members or 
districts of the kingdom, though such Earls 
w T ere a kind of petty Kings. Under our 
Norman Kings, such sovereign Earldoms 
r or 


206 


or Dutchies were distinguished among ua 
by the epithet of Palatines. 

The Kings of France of the third race 
made several Governments hereditary, un¬ 
der the title of counties, &c. reserving to 
the Crown some homage or acknowledg¬ 
ment, as for fiefs. The Normans introduced 
hereditary titles of honour in England, sub¬ 
stituting Barons instead of King’s Thanes, 
who long held capital estates and vassal- 
ages in fee. Earls and Dukes frequently 
retained, long after this, some jurisdiction 
in the counties which gave them their ho¬ 
nours. There was an original MS. ordi¬ 
nance in the possession of Mr. Albany But¬ 
ler, of John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, in 
which, by an Act which is called perpetual, 
he commands that every musician, 'who 
shall play on any instrument within the li¬ 
mits of his county of Salop, shall pay a 
small sum to a certain Chapel of our Lady, 
under pain of forfeiting their instruments; 

with 


207 


with other ordinances of the like nature. 
This pious and excellent Nobleman was 
killed at Northampton, fighting for Henry 
VI. in 1460, and was buried in St. Mary’s 
Chapel, in the Church of St. Cuthbert’s at 
Worksop, as mentioned by Robert Glover, 
(in Geneal. istorum Comitum), and Thore- 
ton in his Nottinghamshire.—(See Selden 
on Titles of Honour, op. vol. 2. and Spel- 
man’s Glossary ad noviss. 

The title of Dominus appeared at first so 
insolent and haughty, that Augustus and 
Tiberius would not allow it to be given 
them. Caligula first assumed it. Shortly 
after it was given, not only to Emperors, 
but likewise to all Governors and Courtiers. 
In France it was long given only to Kings, 
and the epithet of Senior to Noblemen, 
equivalent to the English Ealderman. 
. From Dominus was derived Dam , which, in 
France, was long used only of God and the 
King. At length it became common to all 
r 2 Noble- 


208 


Noblemen, but for some ages has been re¬ 
served to the female sex. From Senior 
came Seigneur, Sieur , Sire , and Messire. 
In the reign of Louis XII. and Francis I. 
in France, Sire was a vulgar title ; whence 
our English Sir . Sire, since that time, has 
been appropriated to the French Kings. 
The Franks for many ages took no titles 
but the names of their manors or residence, 
as of Herstal, &c.~See Glatigny, Ouvres 
Posthumes. Discourse sur les iitres d’hon - 
neur , Paris, 1757. 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


Containing a very curious Account of the manner of 
burying the primitive Christians—with an Ac¬ 
count of the Catacombs , very interesting . 

The primitive Christians were solicitous 
not to bury their dead among infidels, as 
appears from Gamaliel’s case in this respect, 
mentioned by Lucian : also from S. Cy¬ 
prian, who makes it a crime in Martialis, a 
Spanish Bishop, to have buried children in 
profane sepulchres, and mingled with stran¬ 
gers, ep. 68.—(See this point proved by Ma~ 
billen, &c. Diss. sur les Saints Inconnus, 
§ 2. p. 9.) &c. That the Catacombs were 
the cemeteries of the Christians is clear from 
the testimony of all antiquity, and from the 
monuments of Christianity, with which they 
are every where filled.—Misson (Travels 
it 3 through 


210 


through Italy, t. ii. ep. 28.) &c. Fabricius 
suspects heathens to have been often buried 
in these Catacombs. Burnet will have 
them to have been the Puticuli , or burial- 
place of slaves, and the poorest people, men¬ 
tioned by Horace, (Satyr. 8. epod. 1. 5. et 
ult.) Varro, Festus, &c. But all these au¬ 
thors mention the Puticuli to have been 
without the Esquiline gate only, where the 
ashes, or sometimes (if criminal slaves, or 
other poor persons, who died without 
friends or money to procure a pile to burn 
them, or so much as an earthen urn to con¬ 
tain their ashes,) the bodies of such per¬ 
sons were thrown confusedly on heaps in 
pits, whence the name Puticuli . There 
were probably other such pits in places as¬ 
signed, near other highways, which were 
called Columella ?, Sax a, and Ampulla ?.—(See 
Berejier, &c. also Gutherius De Jure Mani- 
um, 1. 2. &c.) The Catacombs, on the 
contrary, are dug on all sides of the city, in 
a very regular manner, and the bodies of 

the 


211 


the dead are ranged in them in separate ca¬ 
verns, on each hand, the caverns being 
shut up with brick or mortar. By the law 
of the 22 tables, mentioned by Cicero, (De 
Leg. l.ii. c. 23.) it was forbid to bury or bum 
any dead corpse within the walls of towns. 
At Athens, by the laws of Solon, and in 
the rest of Greece, the same custom pre¬ 
vailed, upon motives partly of wholesome¬ 
ness, as Isidore observes (P Etymol.), partly 
of superstition—(see the learned John de 
Vita loc. cit. c. ii.) At Rome, vestal Vir¬ 
gins, and sometimes Emperors, were ex¬ 
cepted from this law, and allowed burial 
within the walls. Every one knows that 
on Trajan’s pillar the ashes of that Emperor 
were placed in a golden urn ; which having 
been long before plundered, Sextus V. 
placed there a statue of St. Peter ; as he did 
that of St. Paul, on Antoninus’s pillar, 
though the workmanship of this falls far 
short of the former. The heathen Romans 
burned the corpses of their dead, and 

placed 


212 


placed the urns in which the ashes were 
contained usually on the sides of the high¬ 
ways. Cicero mentions (l. i. Tuscul. Quest, 
c. 7.) those of the Scipios, the Servilii, and 
the Metelli, on the Apian road—(see 
Montfaucon, Antiq. t. 9, 10. and Suppl. t. 
5. and Musaeum Florent.) ; and on the an¬ 
cient Consular roads about Rome, Ficoroni, 
&c. (Vestigia di Roma Antica. c. 2. p. 6.) 

The Catacombs are the ancient cemen- 
teries of the Christians. Those near Naples 
and Nola are spacious, and cut in stony 
ground.—(See Ambr. Leonius, Montfau¬ 
con, &c.) The Roman Catacombs are nar¬ 
row and dark, and, except those of S. Se¬ 
bastian and S. Agnes, too low for strangers 
to visit with any satisfaction, or for persons 
to walk in, without often crawling with 
great difficulty, and the ground (which is 
too soft a mould to support large caverns 
like those of Naples) is in many places 
fallen in. These caverns about Rome are 


so 


213 


so numerous, and of such extent, (each 
shooting into several branches) that they 
may be called a city under ground. So 
stupendous were the works of the ancient 
Romans, that their ruins and remains not 
only astonish all modern architects that 
behold them, but quite overwhelm them 
with amazement, as Justius Lipsius ob¬ 
serves—(De Magnit. Rom. c. ii. de Aqua- 
duct.) And Albertus Leander, speak¬ 
ing of Claudius’s aqueduct, says, to raise 
such a work the whole world would seem 
now a days too weak, and unequal to the 
undertaking. The very sinks and common 
sewers were one of the wonders of the 
world. In like manner, how the immense 
quantity of earth to form the Catacombs 
was moved is a just subject of surprise. 

Boldetti, S. Sebastiani, and others, doubt 
not but these caverns were first dug by the 
heathen Romans to get sand and other 
materials to build the walls and houses in 

the 


214 


the city, as their original name implies.— 
This is affirmed in the acts of S. Sebas¬ 
tian. (ap. Bolland ad 20. Jan. 1. xxiii. p. 
278 . 

The Christians never gave in to the cus¬ 
tom, either of preserving the bodies of 
their dead, like the Egyptians, or of burn¬ 
ing them with the Romans, or of casting 
them to wild beasts with the Persians ; but, 
in imitation of the people of God from the 
beginning of the world, buried them, with 
decency and respect, in the earth, where, 
according to the sentence pronounced by 
God, they return to dust till the general 
resurrection. At Rome they chose these 
caverns, or cirena\ for their burial places, 
digging lodges on each hand, in each of 
which they deposited a corpse, and then 
walled up the entrance to that lodge. Bol- 
detti proves the cemetery of St. Agnes to 
have been enlarged after the reign of Con¬ 
stantine , and the same is not doubted as to 

many 




215 


many others. Several inscriptions on se¬ 
pulchres in the Catacombs give to the per¬ 
sons there interred the quality of fossores, 
or diggers (of cemeteries.)—Aringhi, 1. i. 
c. is. Boldetti, 1. i. c. 15. The pagans of 
Rome burned their dead bodies, which is 
true, not only of the rich, but in general; 
nor is Bishop Burnet able to produce one 
contrary instance, though sometimes the 
corpse of a criminal or slave, who had nei¬ 
ther friends nor money, might be thrown 
into the Puticuli, upon the heads of the 
ashes of the others, without the ceremony 
of being burnt. H. Valesius, in his Notes 
on Eusebius, observes, that it is hard to de¬ 
termine at what time the Romans began to 
leave off the custom of burning their dead 
bodies; but it must have been about the 
time of Constantine the Great, probably 
when he had put an end to the empire of 
paganism. The heathens learned of the 
Christians to bury their dead, and grew at 
once so fond of this custom, that in the 

time 


216 


time of Theodosius the younger, as Macro- 
bius testifies, there was not a body burnt in 
all the Roman empire. The original name 
of Catacombs were Arenarium, or Arena - 
rice, or ad Arenas , that is, sand pits, as ap¬ 
pears in many ancient acts of the martyrs ; 
also cryptce , or caverns, and, in Africa, 
Arece ; in the acts of S. Cyprian and Ter- 
tullian it is written Catacumbce , which is 
the usual name, taken from the Greek, 
a hollow or cavity. It is not to be met 
with before the 4th age, but occurs in 
the Liberian Calendar, and was first given 
to the cemetery of St. Callistus, now of St. 
Sebastian ; afterwards to all the cemeteries 
about Rome. The bodies, now only bones 
and dust, in each lodge, have usually a la- 
crymatery urn, or several vessels placed by 
them : if this be tinged with deep red, and 
has a deep sediment of blood at the bottom, 
it is a sign of martyrdom. On the door of 
brick and mortar with which the lodge was 
closed, is frequently painted some symbol, 


as 


217 


as a flower, branch, vine, &c. With this 
not rarely occurs a name, with dates or 
other notices, which are sometimes carved 
on a marble before the door. 

That the earthen vials, with the red sedi¬ 
ment, contained blood, appears from the 
following observations. Leibnitz, after 
trying this red sediment with various che¬ 
mical experiments, in a letter to Fabretti, 
confesses he could find nothing it resembled 
but a hardened brittle crust of congealed 
blood, which, after so many ages, retains its 
colour.—(See the remarks of Fabretti, In- 
cript. Domest. c. viii. p. 556.) The Chris¬ 
tians used the utmost diligence to gather 
the blood of the martyrs, and deposit 
with their bodies. They sucked it up 
whilst fresh, with sponges, off the wood or 
stones, and they gathered the dust and 
sand which was stained, to extract it, as 
Prudentius witnesses. 


s 


Mabillen 


218 


Mabillen observes, (loc. cit. p. 153) that 
in the first age of the Church the faith¬ 
ful turned their faces towards the East at 
prayer, built Churches so that the high al¬ 
tar and head of the Church was Eastward, 
the rising sun being a symbol of the resur¬ 
rection. They also buried the faithful 
with their feet turned towards the East, 
(the rituals of the late ages say, towards 
the altar in the Chapel in which they are 
buried, or towards the high altar, if in the 
Church-yard, or body of the Church.) 
Adamnan and Bede describe the sepulchre 
of Christ, that he was interred with his 
sacred feet towards the East. Haymo con¬ 
firms the same, adding that his right hand 
was turned towards the South, and his left 
towards the North. From his sepulchre 
Christians have made this their common 
rule in their burials; also that at the last 
day they might rise facing the rising sun, 
as an emblem of the resurrection. The 
Homan ritual, published by Paul V. 1614, 

describes 


219 


describes that Priests be buried with their 
heads towards the altar, to face the people. 
The diocese of Rheims and some others 
retain the old custom of making no dis¬ 
tinction between Priest and laity in this 
respect, but bury all with their feet turned 
towards the altar. 


s 2 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


Of Burials , Epitaphs , and Monuments , of the An¬ 
cients and Moderns . 

What can be more absurd, than, by un¬ 
suitable pompous feathered pageantry, by 
dainty feasts and intemperance, and by 
lying flattering epitaphs, to seek the grati¬ 
fication of a foolish vanity from the grave 
itself, the utmost humiliation of human na¬ 
ture ? In funerals, whatever does not tend 
to awake in us a lively hope, or other sen¬ 
timents of religion, and to excite serious 
reflections on virtue, the knowledge of our¬ 
selves, and eternity; whatever does not 
breathe an air of modesty, gravity, and 
simplicity, and suitable to Christian piety 
and mourning, is out of character, if not 
shocking to good sense and humanity. 

The 


221 


The Christian funerals, which so strongly 
affected the infidels, and appeared awful 
and edifying to a most impious scoffer and 
apostate, tempered and enlivened the gra¬ 
vity of a religious mourning with the most 
tender and heavenly devotion, and solemn 
rites, expressive of a firm faith in a divine 
Redeemer, and an assured hope of immor¬ 
tality. 

The ancients were sparing and modest in 
their epitaphs: these seldom presented 
more than necessary names and dates. The 
most elegant ages of wit and taste con¬ 
fined them to a modest line or two. Had 
statues been formerly as cheap at Athens or 
Rome, as pompous monuments and inscrip¬ 
tions are now-a-days, an honest Roman or 
Greek would have thought them rather a 
disgrace to his name than an honour. Cus¬ 
tom has taught us to suspect the marble of 
lying flattery, attributing to men after their 
death the names at least of virtues which 
s 3 they 


222 


they never possessed whilst they were liv¬ 
ing. That monument perpetuates the me¬ 
mory of a man’s virtues on earth which he 
raises to himself by his actions and exploits, 
and which, by the example of his life, he 
engraves on the hearts of those who come 
after him ; whose single name is the most 
glorious epitaph, and whose valour and vir¬ 
tues men knew and proclaim, without a 
flattering marble prompter. Our artists 
and men of genius seem to discover a great 
dearth of invention, or ignorance of the 
noble examples and emblems of all virtues, 
in which the Scriptures, and the mysteries 
and rites of our own holy religion, are most 
fruitful, since sepulchral monuments, even 
in Churches, begin to be adorned with 
whole groups of heathen deities. They are 
meant as emblems of virtues; but may not 
some stranger be led into mistakes, who sees 
the Crosses, Images of the Patriarchs and 
Apostles, and such like ornaments, banish¬ 
ed, to make room for the figures of Pallas, 

Mars, 


223 


Mars, Mercury, Apollo, and the like mon¬ 
sters ; and this sometimes, perhaps, where 
Bacchus, Venus, or Adonis, might with 
justice (with what propriety I do not say) 
challenge the chief places of honour. 


CHAPTEH 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


The Origin of Romances—the bad e ffects of reading 
them on the minds of young people, as tvell as of 
keeping bad Company. 


Romances are so called, because, in the 
first invention of such compositions, whilst 
other writings in France continued still to 
be published in Latin, these fictitious his¬ 
tories of imaginary adventures were the 
first compositions that were committed to 
writing in the vulgar language called jRo- 
manciere , when the Latin began to be cor¬ 
rupted among the common people. Rivet, 
(Hist. Liter, t. vi. and vii. Pref. p. 66. His 
Continuator, t. ix. p. 19 .) and Henault, 
(Hist. Chron. de la Fr. t. i.) prove that this 
kind of book was first introduced in the 
tenth century, two hundred years before 

Fleury, 


225 


Fleury, Calmet, and the last historian of 
the city of Paris, date their original. 
Such compositions are extremely perni¬ 
cious both to morals and to true litera¬ 
ture. In them the laws neither of or¬ 
der or method, nor of truth or probability, 
are usually observed. Those few that are 
wrote with some degree of elegance and 
spirit, are generally very defective in these, 
particulars, and tend to destroy all the true 
taste in studies, being quite different from 
the parables and fables, under which the an¬ 
cients sometimes couched moral precepts, 
to render them more agreeable, and the 
better to strike the senses. Secondly , Ro¬ 
mances, by substituting falsehoods for true 
history, and a foolish idle amusement in¬ 
stead of solid instruction, destroy in the 
mind that laudable thirst after truth which 
the author of nature imprinted in it, and 
inspire a baneful love of trifles, vanity, and 
folly. A third most pernicious effect of 
such reading, is, that, instead of forming, 

it 


226 


it perverts and depraves the heart, poisons 
the morals, and excites the passions, which 
it is the greatest business of a Christian to 
restrain. This is true even of the writings 
of this kind which seem least dangerous, 
since such fictions only please by insensibly 
flattering vanity, pride, ambition, and the 
like criminal inclinations. If this be so 
with regard to these Romances, which, by 
some persons in the world are called inno¬ 
cent, what censures shall we find harsh 
enough for the generality of such composi¬ 
tions, which are filled with scenes and in¬ 
trigues of love, and tend to aw T ake, cherish, 
and entertain the most dangerous of the 
passions. S. Teresa writes thus of herself: 
“ This fault (of reading Romances) failed 
not to cool my good desires, and was the 
cause of my falling insensibly into other de¬ 
fects. I was so enchanted with the extreme 
pleasure I took therein, that methought I 
could not be content if I had not some new 
Romance in my hands. I began to imitate 

the 


227 


the mode, to take delight in being well 
dressed, to take care of my hands, to make 
use of perfumes, and to affect alt the v$in 
trimmings which my condition permitted. 
Indeed my intention was not bad ; for I 
w T ould not for the world, in the immoderate 
passion which I had, to be decent, give any 
one an occasion of offending God : but I 
now acknowledge how far these things, 
which for several years appeared to me in¬ 
nocent, are effectually and really criminal.” 
These empoisoned lectures ciiange all the 
good inclinations a person has received 
from nature and virtuous education ; they 
chill, by little and little, pious desires, and 
in a short time banish out of the soul all 
that was there of solidity and virtue. By 
them young girls on a sudden lose a habit 
of reservedness and modesty, take an air of 
vanity and gallantry, and make shew of no 
other ardour than for those things which 
the world esteems, and which God abomi¬ 
nates. 


228 


nates. They espouse the maxims, spirit, 
conduct, and language of the passions, 
which are there artfully instilled, under va¬ 
rious disguises; and, what is most danger¬ 
ous, they cloak all this irregularity with the 
appearance of civility, and an easy, comply¬ 
ing, gay humour and disposition. Let all 
young people avoid this dangerous snare 
laid to entrap their innocence. “ Let them 
not be hurried away with the dismal torrent,” 
says Austin, (Conf. 1. i. c. 6.) “ which 
drags along the children of Eve into that 
vast and dangerous sea, out of which 
even they scarce can escape, and save 
themselves, who pass over upon the wood 
of the cross of Christthat is, by a peni¬ 
tential Christian life of mortification, mo¬ 
desty, and devotion. 

Teresa, writing of the danger of bad 
company, says (c. 2.)—“ Were I to give 
counsel to parents, I would warn them to 

be 


229 

be well advised what persons frequent 
their children in their tender age; be¬ 
cause the bent of our corrupt nature 
bears us rather to bad than to good. I 
found this by myself; for I made no profit 
of the great virtue of those about me ; 
whereas I retained all the evil example 
which those gave me who haunted my fa¬ 
rther’s house.” Chrysostom, exhorting 
parents to keep their children at a dis¬ 
tance from balls, assemblies, and public 
dances, and to teach them to flee these as a 
plague, the poison whereof ^s mortal to 
their souls, says :—“ Surely when we see a 
servant bearing about a lighted torch, we 
seriously forbid him to carry it into places 
where there is straw, hay, or such combus¬ 
tible matter, for fear, when lie least thinks 
of it, a spark should fall into it, and set fire 
to the whole house. Let us use the same 
precaution towards our children, and not 
carry their eyes to such places. If such 
persons dwell near us, let us forbid our 
t chil- 


children to look upon them, or to have with 
them any commerce or conversation; lest 
some spark falling into their souls should 
cause a general conflagration, and an irre¬ 
parable damage. 



chapter 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


Of the quantity of Sleep necessary for health , and 
the effects of abstinence , 

Hippocrates, for reasons of health, allows 

t ) constitution at any time above seven , or 
most eight hours, for sleep. Many can 
accustom themselves to be satisfied with 
six, or even . five , some with three or four 
hours sleep, without prejudice. Very great 
abstemiousness makes very little sleep re¬ 
quired. Devout servants of God regret 
the loss of any moments of this short life, 
which they can employ in the divine ser¬ 
vice, or in*tears of compunction, which sa¬ 
crifice, by watching in the silence of the 
night, becomes more acceptable to God. 
But the extraordinary watchings and fasts 
which he read of, as practised by the an- 
t 2 cient 


232 


cient prophets, and other good Christians, 
can only be proposed as patterns for imita¬ 
tion ; and discretion is a necessary condi¬ 
tion in mortification. However, the diffi¬ 
culties or impossibility which many appre¬ 
hend in embracing a penitential cause, ac¬ 
cording to their circumstances, are generally 
imaginary only, and arise from shadows and 
groundless fears, which sloth and sensuality 
create. Such a course, undertaken hearti¬ 
ly, and with resolution and fervour, will not 
be found hard ; but every thing wears a 
frightful face to those who have not courage 
to set their hands to work, as a coward 
starts at shadows. Mortification in little 
things, if constant, and accompanied with 
a spirit of perfect self-denial, sincere humi¬ 
lity, and a desire of concealing itself from 
the eyes of others, may be of great effi¬ 
cacy, without the danger of being ob¬ 
served by others. Such have always been 
recommended even by the heathen philo¬ 
sophers 


233 


sophers themselves, and, on the contrary, 
sloth and indulgence, in either eating or 
sleeping, have been condemned as actions 
.unworthy of that noble creature, man. 


T 3 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



Of the Military Titles among the Homans—and 
when created. 

Every Magistrate, who was a judge of mi¬ 
litary persons and causes, and a commander 
of the soldiery, w 7 as styled a l y ra?tor , and 
his Court was called Prcelorium. The Pre¬ 
fect of the Tree tor turn at Home w 7 as the 
Commander of the Emperor’s Guard, called 
Trcetorian ; to him was committed the 
care of maintaining public discipline, and 
good manners, and he received all appeals 
made from Governors of provinces. This 
office w 7 as created by Augustus to supply 
the duties of Magister Militum , under the 
Dictators.—(See Hetomanus de Magistra- 
tibus Romanorum.) Constantine the Great 
abolished the Praetorian Guards, and the 

Prae- 


235 


Praetorium at Rome, and instituted four 
Prefects of the Praetorium ; two in the 
East—the one called of the East, the other 
of Illyricum ; and two in the West, called, 
the one of Italy, the other of the Gauls. 
These were the supreme Magistrates of the 
empire, and held the next place to the Em¬ 
peror. All other Magistrates and Gover¬ 
nors in, their provinces were subject to 
them, and they commanded both the ar¬ 
mies and the provinces.—(See Onuphrius 
De Imperio Romano, &c.) 


CHAPTER 




CHAPTER XXXIX. 



Of Amusements , and Idle Visits—and the Conduct 
of the Ancients in these matters, even of Emper¬ 
ors and Queens—and Invention of Cards . 

To make a round of amusements or idle 
visits the business of life is to degrade the 
dignity of a rational being, and to sink be¬ 
neath the very brute creation. Anciently, 
not only amongst the Hebrews, who en¬ 
joyed the light of faith and religion, but 
also amongst the Gentiles, Queens and 
Empresses are always found, in Homer, 
and other writers, at their looms or distaffs, 
or busy in their domestic concerns, never 
idle, or at play. Augustus Caesar wore no 
other clothes than such as his wife and 
daughter had spun or made with their own 
hands. Nature stands in need of relaxation 

for 


237 


for exercise of the body, and unbending of 
the mind, but this may be so contrived as to 
be useful and serious ; at least, it ought 
never to swallow up too much of our pre¬ 
cious time. It is not to be expressed how 
much any passion for trifling amusements 
unsettles, enervates, and debases the mind, 
and unhinges the whole frame of the soul; 
how strong an aversion to business, and 
how torpid a sloth it generates : also what 
loathings, and how much emptiness, fickle¬ 
ness, and bitterness, every where attend 
and pursue it. When, through a degener¬ 
acy of soul, many shrink first from a serious 
turn of mind, they chose diversions which 
were martial and laborious. To the dregs 
of corruption in manners was reserved the 
invention of slothful games and amuse¬ 
ments. Cards, the modish diversion of this 
age, were first discovered at the French 
Court in the 14th century—F. Daniel (Dm, 
sur V origine da jeu de Piquet , &c.} thinks 
in the reigns of Charles VI. and VII. for 

the 



233 


the names and numbers of the cards ad¬ 
mirably agree, by elegant allusions, to the 
persons and transactions of that time. Mr. 
Bullet, Professor at Besancon, to whom the 
Memoirs sur la Langue Celtique have ac¬ 
quired an immortal reputation, published 
in 1757 a pamphlet, entitled, RecJierches 
historiques sur les cartes a jouer, avec des 
notes critiques , wherein he corrects several 
mistakes of F. F. Menestrier and Daniel 
on this subject, and demonstrates that cards 
were invented Jour or Jive years before the 
death of Charles V. and that they consist 
of military allusions. Even the Queens 
have a relation to the combats of chivalry, 
in which the ladies had a great share. 
This game was soon after introduced in 
JEngland, as appears from the word Knave, 
for valet or servant, which it then signified 
with us; as appears from WicklifFs New 
Testament, keptin Westminster Library, &c. 
where we read, Paul , the knave of Jesus 
Christ. Games at cards, in which chance 


is 


239 


is chiefly predominant, fall under the cen¬ 
sure of games of hazard, which the laws of 
religion and natural justice capitally con¬ 
demn. Those games at cards, in which 
dexterity and skill prevail, can only be to¬ 
lerated or allowed when the play is not 
deep, and there is no danger either of losing 
much time at it, or of contracting an at¬ 
tachment to it. 


CHAPTER 



CHAPTER XL. 



Of the Invention of the Gamut, or first Notes in 
Music—giving a short account of such invention . 

Guido, a Monk of Arezzo, in Tuscany, 
in 1009, was the inventor of the Gamma 
nt , or Gamut, and the six notes, Ut, Re, 
Mi, Fa, Sol, La ; which syllables are taken 
from the three first verses of the hymn of 
St. John Baptist, JJt queant laxis , &c. 
Without the use of the Gamut, a person 
could not in a little time become perfect 
master of plain song. Guido says, in a 
letter which he wrote, “ I hope they who 
come after us will not forget to pray for 
us ; for we make a perfect master of sing¬ 
ing in a year or two, whereas, till now, a 
person could scarce attain this science, even 
imperfectly, in ten years.” The Gamut 

is 



241 


is the first note, but oftener taken for the 
whole scale of music, or series of sounds, 
rising or falling towards acuteness, or gra¬ 
vity, from any given pitch, or tone. Plain 
song is that in which all sing in unison : it 
is executed by fixing the musical notes 
within due limits, and ordering or dispos¬ 
ing the changes, risings, and fallings of the 
voice, according to the natural series of the 
musical sounds. 


v 


CHAPTER 



CHAPTER XLI. 


Of Fare Coaches, that is, Coaches let to hire—their 
origin—and what the Ancients used before their 
■invention. 

Du Plessis shews that the name Fiacre 
was first given to Hackney Coaches, be¬ 
cause hired Coaches were first made use of 
for the convenience of pilgrims who went 
from Paris to visit the shrine of St. Fiaker, 
and because the Inn where these Coaches 
were hired was known by the sign of St. 
Fiaker. This is also in part the remark of- 
Menage, (Diet. Etym. v. Fiacre) who, for 
his skill in the Greek and Roman Antiqui¬ 
ties, as well as those of his own country, 
was called a living Library, and the Varro . 
of the 17th ceptury.—(See Abbe Goujet. 
Bibliotheque Francoise . t. 18. vie de Me¬ 
nage.) 


/ 


243 


nage.) Before the modern invention of 
Spring Coaches, the ancient lofty Cha¬ 
riots, or Cars, were chiefly used in war, 
or on certain solemn occasions only, they 
being too painful vehicles for ordinary 
journies of pleasure. Our Queens rode 
behind their Masters of Horse ; our 
Members of both Houses of Parliament 
came up to London on horseback, with 
their wives behind them. In prance, in 
1585 , the celebrated M. du Thou, first Pre¬ 
sident of the Parliament of Paris, appeared 
in the fourth Coach which had ever been 
seen in that kingdom. The military men 
used horses ; but those that belonged to the 
Parliaments, or professed the law, rode on 
mules. In M. du Thou’s time, three 
brothers, all eminent for their honourable 
employments in the law, had but one mule 
amongst them.—(See Boursault’s Letters.) 


V 2 , s CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XLI1. 


4 Short Dissertation on the Latin and Greek Lan¬ 
guages—and of their usefulness . 

The Latin and Greek languages are a ne¬ 
cessary introduction to learning; they are 
requisite to open to us the sources of sacred 
studies, and are adopted by the Church of 
Rome in her Liturgies, to prevent the in¬ 
conveniences and dangerous consequences 
of continual alterations and variations : they 
are likewise the key which unlock to us the 
original and most accomplished masters of 
polite literature, and almost all the sciences. 
These and other reasons moved St. Isidore 
to cultivate the study of tlrese languages. 
The Latin tongue, though degenerating 
from its purity ever since the reign of Do- 
mitian, still continued the living language 

among 


245 


among the old Roman inhabitants in Spain, 
but began to be embased by the mixture of 
the Goths ; and this alteration was after¬ 
wards much increased by the irruption of 
the Moors, and by the commerce of other 
barbarous nations. To preserve the know¬ 
ledge of the Latin tongue, S. Isidore wrote 
several Treatises on Grammar; he com¬ 
piled others on philosophy, on the holy 
scriptures, and oh various subjects. He has 
likewise left us a list of 92 ecclesiastical 
writers, from Pope Sextus III. with whom 
St. Jerom concluded his catalogue ; a Chro¬ 
nicle from the beginning of the world down 
to his own time; and a History of the Goths. 
T. Flores has favoured us with anew complete 
edition of S. Isidore’s Book, Be Viris Illus - 
tribus , &c. The most famous of Isidore’s 
works are twenty Books of Etymologies , or 
Origins , in which he lays down the princi¬ 
ples of the different Sciences, beginning 
with Grammar. Isidore died 4th April, 
636. 

r u3 


CHAPTER 


CHAPTER XLIII. 


Of the Persian , Pom an , and German Miles—and 
the manner of calculating them . 

Pliny informs us, that the Persian para- 
sahg was not always of the same measure, 
and the same is to be sard of the Parthian 
schasnus. Hasius proves, that in Xeno¬ 
phon the parasangs are in such a propor¬ 
tion, that 33 measured a degree on the 
equator, that is, 60 modern Italian, or 75 
old Roman miles. De LTsle counts 600 in 
a degree, or 75 Roman miles. A German 
mile comprises 4 Italian, or 5 old Roman 
miles, or 40 furlongs. One furlong contained 
625 Raman, or 600 Grecian feet, 

571 Paris feet. The confusion found in 
the mensuration of roads, in Pliny, Dio¬ 
dorus, &c. is thought, by Hasius, to pro¬ 
ceed 


247 


ceed from a great difference in the old fur¬ 
long, of which he thinks a degree con¬ 
tained 1100. F. Hardouin, in his Notes 
on Pliny, (1. vi. c. 27.) takes notice, that a 
Persian parasang was of 60, or of 30 or 40 
furlongs, and that there was as great a dif¬ 
ference in the Egyptian schaenus. 


appendix. 



I 

' *' '.nil .f, 








, N ./ * 1 * 


APPENDIX. 


CHAPTER I. 


Of the Knights of Malta—the origin and history of 
that Order, very interesting . 

The Knights of Malta, or of St. John of 
Jerusalem, were originally called Knights 
Hospitallers, instituted by certain merchants 
of Amalphi, in the kingdom of Naples, who, 
trading in the Levant, obtained leave of 
the Caliph of the Saracens to build a ; house 
at Jerusalem for themselves and pilgrims, 
on paying an annual tribute. Soon after 
they founded a church in honour of St. 
John Baptist, with an hospital for sick pil¬ 
grims, from which they took their name. 

The 




230 


The valiant and most pious Prince God¬ 
frey of Bouillon, who took Jerusalem in 
1099, exceedingly favoured these Hospi¬ 
tallers, who, in the reign of Baldwin L 
King of Jerusalem, in 1104, added to three 
religious vows another, by which they 
obliged them to defend the pilgrims in the 
holy land from the insults of the Saracens. 
From that time they became a military or¬ 
der of Knights, and wore for their Badge a 
Cross, with eight points. In 11S7, Saladin, 
the Caliph of Syria and Egypt, wrested Je¬ 
rusalem, for the last time, from the Chris¬ 
tians, and after the kingdom of the Latins 
had maintained itself there 89 years, under 
their eight Kings. The Knights retired to 
Aeon, or Acre, anciently called Ptolemais, 
on the sea coast in Palestine, until that 
strong fortress was taken by storm by the 
Saracens, in 1291. From which time they 
resided in Cyprus till, in 1310, they gal¬ 
lantly took Rhodes from those infidels, and 
the year following defended it against their 

furious 


251 


furious assaults, being relieved by the sea¬ 
sonable succours brought by the brave 
Amadeus IV. Count of Savoy. The Turks 
having vanquished the Saracens, and em¬ 
braced their superstitions, and Mahomet II. 
having taken Constantinople by storm in 
3 453, under Constantine Paleologus, the 
last Grecian Emperor, these Knights be¬ 
came more than ever the bulwark of Chris¬ 
tendom. Under the conduct of the valiant 
Grand Master Aubusson, in 1480, they 
bravely defended their Isle for two months 
against the victorious army of above 
100,000men of Mahomet II. the greatest war¬ 
rior of all the Turkish Emperors, who con¬ 
quered the two empires of Constantinople 
and Trebizonde, 12 kingdoms, and 200 ci¬ 
ties. But Solyman II. surnamed the magni¬ 
ficent, after a gallant defence made by the 
Knights, rendered himself master of this 
strong fortress, by the treachery of the 
Chancellor of the Order, in 1522 ; and the 
Grand Master, Villiers ITsle Adam, after 

prodigies 


252 


prodigies of valour, was obliged to seek a 
new retreat. The Emperor Charles V. 
gave the Knights the Isle of Malta in 1530. 
Solyman II. in 1566, bent the whole 
strength of his empire against this small 
Island, but, after a vigorous siege of four 
months , his army was shamefully repulsed 
by the most memorable defence that is re¬ 
corded in history, under the conduct of the. 
Grand Master, John de Valette, assisted by 
the munificence chiefly of Pius V. The 
Turks retreated with 80,000, when the 
Grand Master had only 6000 men. The 
Knights of this order are obliged to make 
proof of their being nobly descended, for 
four generations, both by the father and 
mother’s side, and upon their admission pay 
250 crowns in gold to the treasury of the 
order. They make the three religious 
vows, consequently can never marry; and 
add a fourth , never to make peace with in¬ 
fidels. They observe certain constitutions, 
borrowed from the rule of the regular ca¬ 


nons 


253 


nons of St. Austin. Formerly this order 
consisted of eight languages, or nations; 
but the English, which was the sixth, was 
extinguished by King Henry VIII. Each 
language was divided into certain Grand 
Priories, and every Grand Priory into seve¬ 
ral Commandaries. Servant-Knights prove 
their nobility, but not for four descents. 
.The Chaplains must also be of noble ex¬ 
traction. The Dones, or Demi-Crosses, are 
not strictly members of the body, may 
marry, and wear a gold Cross of three 
branches, those of the Knights having four. 
The Grand Master is chosen by the Priors. 
There are servants of the office, who are 
employed in the hospitals. The chief end 
of this military order is to defend the inno¬ 
cent, and protect and cover Christendom 
from the insults of the Mahometans, in imi¬ 
tation of the Maccabees, who, with the zeal 
of martyrs, defended the people of God in 
the old law. 


x 


Raymond 


254 


Raymund du Puy was the first Grand 
Master after they commenced Knights.— 
He drew up the statutes of the order, and 
died in 1160 . In proof that this order has 
produced many great heroes, who have 
achieved glorious military exploits, it is 
only necessary to read the history of Mal¬ 
ta, by Abbey Vertot. 

The Knights of Malta are obliged, after 
profession, to wear a white Cross, or Star, 
with eight points, sewed on the left side of 
their cloak or coat; but, before their vows, 
they wear a gold Cross, with eight points, 
enamelled with white, hanging at a black 
ribband. The Knights may defer their 
vows, and seldom make them until sure of 
a Commandery. The languages of Malta, 
now subsisting, are called of Provence, Au¬ 
vergne, France, Italy, Arragon, Germany, 
and Castile. France alone having three 
languages, it is the most powerful in the 
order. In Spain other military religious 

orders 


255 


orders flourish, such as Alcantara and Ca- 
latrava , instituted upon the taking of those 
towns from the Moors : they are subject to 
the Cistercian rule, but the Knights are not 
hindered by their vow from marrying 
once. In Portugal, that of Avis is likewise 
under the Cistercian rule ; it was re-esta¬ 
blished after the victory of Evora over the 
Moors, and confirmed by Innocent IV. in 
the year 1234. 

CHAPTER II. 

Of the Order of the Knights of St. George—when 
instituted—and by whom, Ss'c. 

Under the name and ensign of St. 
George, Edward III. our victorious King, 
in 1330, instituted the most noble order of 
Knighthood in Europe, consisting of 25 
Knights, besides the Sovereign. Its esta¬ 
blishment is dated 50 years before the 
Knights of St. Michael were instituted in 
x 2 France 


256 


France by Louis XI.; 80 years before the 
order of the Golden Fleece, established by 
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy ; and 
190 before the order of St. Andrew was set 
up in Scotland by James V. The Em- 
peror Frederic IV. instituted in 1470 an 
order of Knights in honour of St. George, 
and an honourable military order in Venice 
bears his name. 

CHAPTER III. 

Of the Knights Templars—their institution , and 
other particulars. 

The Knights Templars, of whom we 
sometimes make mention, were instituted 
by seven gentlemen at Jerusalem, in 1118, 
to defend the holy places and pilgrims from 
the insults of the Saracens, and keeping the 
passes free for such as undertake the voyage 
of the holy land. They took their name 
from the first house which was given them 

by 


257 


by King Baldwin II. situated near the place 
where anciently the Temple of Solomon 
stood. By the liberality of princes, im¬ 
mense riches suddenly flowed into this or¬ 
der, by which the Knights were puffed up 
to a degree of insolence which rendered 
them insupportable, even to the Kings who 
had been their protectors, and Philip the 
Fair, King of France, resolved to compass 
their ruin. They w r ere accused of treasons 
and conspiracies with the infidels, and of 
other enormous crimes, which occasioned 
the suppression of the order by a decree of 
Clement V. and the General Council of 
Vienne, in 1312. The year following, the 
Grand Master, who was a Frenchman, was 
burnt at Paris, and several others suffered 
death, though they all with their last 
breath protested their innocence as to the 
crimes that were laid to their charge. These 
w^ere certainly much exaggerated by their 
enemies, and doubtless many innocent men 
were involved with the guilty. A great 
x 3 part 


258 


part of their estates was given to the 
Knights of Rhodes or Malta. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Of the Order of St. Hubert , instituted by Gerard 
V. Hide of Clives aucT Giielders , 1444 . 

The military order of Knights of St. Hu¬ 
bert was instituted by Gerard V. Duke of 
Clives and Guelders, in memory of his vic¬ 
tory, gained in 1444, on St. Hubert’s day, 
over the House of Egmont, which pre¬ 
tended a claim to those Dutehies. Tl^ie 
Knights wore a gold collar, ornamented 
with hunting horns, on which hung a 
medal, with an image of St. Hubert before 
their breast. The Duke of Newburgh be¬ 
came heir to Clives, and, in 1685, was 
made Elector Palatine of the Rhine. This 
honour is since conferred by the Electors 
Palatine on certain gentlemen of his Court, 
with pensions. The Knights now wear a 

gold 


259 


gold Collar, with a Cross, and an image of 
St. Hubert, &c .—(See Statuta Ordinis Mili¬ 
tarise S. Huberti, &c. Joan Gill. Comite Pa- 
latino Rheni, S. R. Select, renovati, an. 
1708. Also the Jesuit Bonnani Schoone- 
beck, and F. Flonoratus of St. Mary, in 
their history of military orders and Knight¬ 
hood. 

CHAPTER V. 

Of the Knights of the Teutonic Order—their esta - 
blishment , and history . 

The Knights of the Teutonic order 
owe their establishment to certain Ger¬ 
man gentlemen from Bremen and Lu- 
bec, at the siege of Aeon, or Acre, in Pa¬ 
lestine, who instituted this order in imita¬ 
tion of the Knights Templars and Hospi¬ 
tallers. It was approved by Calixtus II. 
in 1192. The Teutonic Knights con¬ 
quered, in 1250, the infidels of Prussia, 
whom the Polanders had not been able to 
subdue, and built the cities of Elbing, Ma- 


nom 


260 


rionburgh, Thorn, Dantzic, and Koning* 
berg. The Poles disputed several of these 
territories with them. At length Albert, 
Marquis of Brandenburgh, Grand Master, 
embracing Lutheranism, with several of 
the Knights, quitted the title of Grand 
Master, and drove the order out of Prus¬ 
sia, which he left to the House of Branden¬ 
burgh ; from which time the order is re¬ 
duced to four poor Commandaries, and the 
Grand Master resides at Marg'entheim, or 
Mariendal, in Franconia. 

CHAPTER VI. 

An Account of the Origin of the Order of St. An¬ 
drew—with some Account of the Unwersity of St. 
Andrew’s, in Scotland. 

The city of St. Andrew’s, situated in the 
County of Fife, rose from the Abbey, and 
was in a flourishing condition when the 
University was erected, in 1441, by Bishop 
Henry Wardlow, and confirmed by the 

Pope. 


261 


Pope. The University was much aug¬ 
mented by James Kennedy, the succeeding 
Bishop, who was Regent of the kingdom 
during the minority of James III. The 
next Bishop, called Patrick Graham, 
gained a sentence at Rome, declaring that 
the Archbishop of York had no jurisdiction 
over the See of St. Andrew’s, and likewise 
obtained that this latter should be erected 
into an Archbishop.—(See Sir James Bal¬ 
four.) The Abbot of St. Andrew’s of Ca¬ 
non Regulars, who succeeded the Culdees 
in this place, (and was a filiation of the 
Abbey of Scone) jn Parliament had the 
precedence of all the Abbots in Scotland.— 
(See Robert Keith’s Account of the reli¬ 
gious Houses in Scotland, p. 237.) But the 
Abbeys of Scone, upon the river Tay, amile 
above Perth, in which the Kings were 
crowned, and where the royal marble chair, 
now at Westminster, was kept; and Holy- 
roodhouse, dedicated in honour of the holy 
Cross, both of this order, were most fa¬ 


mous. 


262 


mous. The regular canons were most 
flourishing, and succeeded in most of the 
Houses of the Culdees in Scotland. The 
chief monasteries of the Benedictine order, 
in Scotland, were Dunfermline, in Fife- 
shire, begun by Malcolm III. surnamed 
Canmore, where several Kings were buried, 
and the shrine of St. Margaret was kept 
and Coldingham, in the shire of Berwick, 
which monastery was refounded by King 
Edgar, for monks, the ancient nunnery 
having been destroyed by the Danes.— 
(See Keith.) 

The institution of the order of Knight¬ 
hood in honour of St. Andrew, is ascribed, 
by the Scots, to King Achaius, in the 8th 
century, which seemed in a manner obli¬ 
terated, when King James VII. revived it. 
The Collar is made up of Thistles and Rue, 
the one not being to be touched without 
hurt, and the other being an antidote 
against poison. 


CHAPTER 


263 


CHAPTER VII. 

Of the City of Bagdad—where situated , and by 
whom built—also accounts regarding it by sundry 
eminent Authors . 

Bagdad was built by the Saracens upon 
the ruins of Seleucia, which they had des¬ 
troyed in the conquest of that country, and 
is 30 miles from the ruins of Babyloh, upon 
the Euphrates, in Chaldea, which Strabo 
and Diodorus Siculus say was almost a de- 
sart wheh they wrote, in the reign of Au¬ 
gustus. Eusebius (in Isa. xiii.) tells us it 
was a desart in his time; and St. Jerom 
(in eund. text.) says, that the King of Per¬ 
sia made use of it for a park for the keep¬ 
ing of wild beasts for their hunting. Ben¬ 
jamin of Tudela, in Navarre, a Jew in the 
12th age, giving an account of his travels, 
says, that he found Babylon entirely des¬ 
troyed ; that the ruins of Nebuchodonozor’s 
palace were conspicuous, and that the spot 
was literally the habitation of serpents, 

which 


264 


which were so numerous, that no one 
durst go near the place. At present, the 
very spot where Babylon stood seems un¬ 
certain to many judicious critics. The 
Archbishops of Seleucia took the title of 
Catholicos, which expresses a kind of pa¬ 
triarchal dignity. Hence their successors, 
who fell into Nestorianism, are styled pa¬ 
triarchs of the Nestorians, and reside at 
Bagdad. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Of the City of Benchor, now corruptly called Ban- 
gor — its ancient history, and interesting parti¬ 
culars, 

Benchor, now corruptly called Bangor, 
is derived from the Latin Benedictus cho¬ 
rus, blessed choir. It was founded by St. 
Comgall about the year 550; is said to have 
had sometimes 3000 monks at once : at 
least from it swarmed many other monaste- 
^ ries 


265 


lies in Ireland and Scotland ; and St. Co- 
lumban, a monk of this house, propagated 
its institute in France and Italy. The 
buildings were destroyed by Danish pi¬ 
rates, who massacred here 900 monks in 
one day. From that time it lay in ruins 
till St. Malachy restored it. A small part 
of St. Malachy’s building yet subsists. The 
traces of the old foundation discover it to 
have been of great extent.—(See the new 
accurate history of the County of Down, 
p. 64. published 1744; and Sir James 
Ware, in Monas. Hibernica, p. 210.) 


CHAPTER IX. 

Of Gibraltar—the origin of the name—and its an¬ 
cient history. 

Roderic having dethroned and pulled out 
the eyes of Vitiza, the Gothic King of 
Spain, and excluded his children from the 
Crown, usurped himself the throne in 711. 

y* Count 


266 


Count Julian, the most powerful Nobleman 
in Spain, and Governor of that part which 
was contiguous to the streights, out of re¬ 
venge for an insult which Roderic had of¬ 
fered his daughter, whom that tyrant had 
ravished, invited the Moors or Saracens 
from Africa into Spain. Mousa, who was 
Governor of those Saracens, having ob¬ 
tained the consent of the Caliph Miramo- 
lin, sent first only 12,000 men, under a Ge¬ 
neral named Tarif, who easily possessed 
himself of Mount Calpe, and the town Hera- 
clea, which these Moors from that time 
called Gibraltar, or Mount of Tarif, from 
this General, and the word Gibel, which in 
Arabic signifies mountain ; whence .ZEtna 
in Sicily was called by the Saracens Gibel. 
Such is the earliest accounts we have of 
this \celebrated fortress, which in modern 
times has cost so much blood and treasure. 


CHAPTER 


267 


CHAPTER X. 

Of the first authentic Accounts of London. 

London was a flourishing Roman colony 
under Nero, and probably had been founded 
under Julius Caesar soon after his landing 
in Britain. King Alfred is justly styled its 
second founder. He taught the people to 
build their houses of brick or stone, which 
till then had been usually made of wood 
and mortar. He erected several castles 
and fortresses, repaired the walls of Lon¬ 
don, and founded three monasteries, and a 
rich nunnery at Shaftsbury. King Alfred’s 
Saxon translation of the New Testament 
was printed at London in 1571. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Of the most authentic Accounts ice have of Paris, 
and the earliest . 

Paris was called by the Romans the castle 
of the Parisians, being by its situation one 
y 2 of 


263 


of the strongest fortresses in Gaul; for at 
that time it was confined to the island in 
the river Seine, now called the Isle du Pa¬ 
lais, and the city; though the limits of the 
city are now extended somewhat beyond 
that island, ft is the smallest part of the 
town. This Isle was only accessible over 
two wooden bridges, each of which was de¬ 
fended by a castle, which were afterwards 
called the great and little Chatelet .—(See Lo- 
beneauHist. dela VilledeParis,t.i.l. 1.) The 
greatest part of the neighbouring country 
was covered with thick wo'ods. The Ro¬ 
man Governor built a palace without the 
Island, (now in rue de 1* Harpe,) which Ju¬ 
lian the Apostate, whilst he commanded in 
Gaul, exceedingly embellished, furnished 
with water by a curious aqueduct, and, for 
the security of his own person, contrived a 
subterraneous passage from the palace to 
the castle, or great Chatelet, of all which 
works certain vestiges are to be seen at this 
day. 


CHAPTER 


269 


CHAPTER XII. 

Of the earliest interesting Accounts of the City of 
Borne, in history—and of its burning by Kero . 

The city of Rome was set fire to in the 
year 64, and burned for nine days, from 
the 19th to the 28th July ; in which ter¬ 
rible conflagration, out of the 14 regions or 
quarters into which it was then divided, 
three were entirely laid in ashes, seven of 
them were miserably defaced, and filled 
with the ruins of half-burnt buildings, and 
only four entirely escaped this disaster. 
Tillemont, Crevier, and other judicious cri¬ 
tics, make no doubt but Nero was the au¬ 
thor of this calamity. Besides envying the 
fate of Priam, who saw his country laid in 
ashes, Nero had an extravagant passion to 
make a new Rome, which should be built 
in a more sumptuous manner, and extend 
as far as Ostia to the sea ; he wanted room, 
in particular, to enlarge his own palace. 
Accordingly, he immediately rebuilt his 
y 3 own 


270 


own palace, of an immense extent, and 
adorned it all over with gold, mother of 
pearl, precious stones, and whatever the 
world afforded that was rich and curious, 
so that he called it the golden palace. But 
this was pulled down after his death. 

As already mentioned, there is no doubt 
that Nero was the author of this calamity ; 
but, to screen himself from the blame, he 
accused the Christians of having set fire to 
Rome, although, as Tacitus testifies, no 
person believed them guilty. Yet they 
were seized, treated as victims of the hatred 
of all mankind, insulted even in their tor¬ 
ments and death, and made to serve as 
spectacles of diversion and scorn to the 
people. Some were clothed in the skins of 
wild beasts, and exposed to dogs to be torn 
to pieces; others were hung on crosses, set 
in rows; and many perished by flames, 
being burnt in the night time, that their 
execution might serve for fires and light, 

says 


271 


says Tacitus. This is farther illustrated by 
Seneca, Juvenal, and his Commentator, 
who says, that Nero punished the magi* 
cians, (by which impious name was meant 
the Christians) causing them to be bes¬ 
meared over with wax, pitch, and other 
combustible matter, with a sharp pike put 
under their chin, to make them hold it up¬ 
right in their torments, and thus to be 
burnt alive. Tacitus adds, that Nero gave 
his own gardens to serve for a theatre to 
this spectacle.—See the Life of Nero, where 
this affair is more fully narrated. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Of the City of Moscow, in Russia , the ancient Capi¬ 
tal of that Empire—-its foundation, and other 
particulars . 

The city of Moscow was built about the 
year 1149, and took its name from a monas- 

tery 


2*72 


tery named Moskoi, (from Mus or Musik, 
men , < 7 . d. the seat of men), not from the 
river Moscow, which was anciently called 
Somorodina—(J. S. Bayer. Orig. Russicae, 
&c.) In 1319, Gedimidius, great Duke of 
Lithuania, having vanquished the Russian 
Duke of Kiow, the Archbishop Peter re¬ 
moved his See to Moscow, and from that 
town these Russians began then to be cal¬ 
led Muscovites; for the Duke John, Son 
of Daniel, soon followed the Archbishop, 
and transferred thither the seat of his prin¬ 
cipality from Uladimina, though the Arch¬ 
bishop of Kiow continued to take the title 
of Metropolitan of Russia.—(See Herbers- 
teinius, &c.) 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Of Jerusalem , and its destruction at different times . 

Nebuchadnezar laid siege to Jerusalem in 
3414, defeated the King of Egypt, who was 

marching 


273 


marching to relieve it, and took that city in 
3416, burned the temple, caused the eyes 
of Sedecias to be put out, whom he had 
formerly appointed King of Judea, and car¬ 
ried him to Babylon. But in the second 
year of Darius Hystaspis, of the world 
3483, on the prophets Agggeus and Zachary 
encouraging the Jews, and with the leave 
of that Prince, the foundation of the temple 
was laid. It was completed and dedicated 
in the 8th year of his reign, and of the 
wo^'ld 3488. He filled the throne 36 
years, and his son Xerxes 21 years. 

In the 7th year of Artaxerxes Longima- 
nus, after he was associated by his father 
Xerxes, and the first after the death of 
Xerxes, Esdras, a holy priest and prophet, 
obtained leave to lead back from Babylon 
to Judea the remainder of his people, and 
to finish the buildings begun at Jerusalem. 
In the 20th year of the same Prince, Ne- 
hemias, his cup-bearer, a most zealous and 

virtuous 


virtuous Jew, whether of the tribe of Juda 
or of Levi is uncertain', procured the most' 
ample authority to encompass Jerusalem 
with walls, and to restore its splendour; 
which authority was again confirmed to 
him two years after. This excellent man 
re-established over all Judea the common¬ 
wealth of the Jews, though still subject to 
the Persians. The empire of the latter 
flourished during 207 years, under 13 
Kings. 


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